League Rundown - Episode 537: Highest mountain, longest river, Faker does it again

[00:00:27] Speaker A: Oh my God. [00:00:28] Speaker B: Sy passes through and manages to the tables with Messiah tanking it up. I do not believe he just game Unicorns of Love. [00:00:48] Speaker C: It wasn't your game. [00:00:50] Speaker B: The Nexus. Hello and welcome to episode 537 of the League Rundown. It's world's 2024 finals review time, the final episode of our world's coverage. And this episode is lovingly entitled Highest Mountain, Longest River. Faker does it again. I am your host, Kangas, and I'm joined by three esteemed co hosts. Up first we got Bickle. [00:01:31] Speaker A: One, you just can't bet against Faker. And two, thank you, Riot, for releasing all of the format info in regards to the Americas the day after we record our podcast. [00:01:41] Speaker B: Yep, that was unfortunate timing, but we had a lot of rumors and speculation. At least we got time to cover LEC at LCK last week. But yes, we will be covering that as well as the world's news or world's Finals preview on this episode. Also joining us on the pod, though, and maybe less excited about how the finals went, is Mr. Ms. LPL. Hello. [00:02:03] Speaker D: I'm a little sad, but it's okay. [00:02:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, hey, they put up one hell of a fight, dude. [00:02:08] Speaker D: They did. [00:02:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I think your boys did. You're proud. Or at least I was proud of them, even though they weren't able to get that full best of 5 victory. Speaking of victories, the man who was able to convince me that the phrase jumping the shark is actually a real thing, even though I'd never heard of it. We got Hawkins. [00:02:29] Speaker C: It is a real phrase. I'm glad you finally submitted and that enough people have told you that it's not a bird fact, but maybe that's. [00:02:36] Speaker B: Not a bird fact of the day. [00:02:38] Speaker C: Is that jumping the shark? What was it from? What was the show? It was from. I don't even know what it is. Happy days. [00:02:44] Speaker B: Happy days. [00:02:45] Speaker C: They jump over a shark and it's a phrase that means, like, when something is. It loses you. Basically, you. You lose your suspension of disbelief. It never is the same again. And you know, he specifically pertains to like, media. [00:02:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I thought you were gonna sneak a bird fact in there. I'm not gonna lie. I thought. I thought it was gonna be like a double hitter. But you know what? It will give a pause in the bird facts for this week just because I wanted people to know and I want them to let me know. Did anybody else, any other listeners not know what the phrase jumping the shark meant? Because I had no clue. And then I felt Like a fool at dinner. But so far, it's been about 50. 50 of people I've polled. So Pickle, New Hawk knew me and Missile did not know. So let us know if you knew in the discord. But before we get into all that stuff, if you know, you know. Before you know all that stuff, we got some news to cover. First up. Yeah. Literally the day after we recorded last week's episode, the LTA news drops. That is League of the Americas. That is the official title that the lcs, LLA, and CB Lowell will be under the umbrella of between the north and south conferences, making it LTA N for LTA north and LTA S for LTA South. Okay, first reactions. Let's just hear everyone's gut reactions. I'll go last. I want to. I'm going to throw it to Hawk. Hawk, let's get your reactions. First. My. [00:04:12] Speaker C: Sorry. My reaction. I spaced for, like, 0.2 seconds. [00:04:15] Speaker B: Just. LTA. Vibe check. Vibe check. On the acronym LTA, I think it's. [00:04:21] Speaker C: Not a good acronym, specifically. I don't know why. We're just. [00:04:27] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:04:27] Speaker C: It's like, the thing with rebranding is you have to make the new brand indisputably better than the old one. And this is like. [00:04:35] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:04:36] Speaker C: It just feels like a rebranding because. [00:04:38] Speaker B: I'm also still in the camp that. [00:04:39] Speaker C: This is downsizing in disguise, and they've just rebranded everything to hide the fact. So, yeah, I think it's pretty. I'm not impressed. [00:04:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it's okay. I said I was gonna go last. Missile, let's get your thoughts. [00:04:54] Speaker D: I'm not. Not a big fan. I feel like I'm just sad that LCS is gone, honestly. And it sucks that there was, like, rumblings that maybe they wanted to keep the branding and stuff, but, like, you. You had to have come up with something better than lta, especially because the T is literally the In. What other acronyms do in between words count as a full letter? Like, it never happens. It's always of the. They're always underneath, and it's. It's just crazy. [00:05:25] Speaker B: I. Honest. Okay. No, I. I'm going last. I'm going last. Bigger go last. [00:05:31] Speaker A: I think I'm with the crowd here. It's just a disappointment. It's not as bad as 2x Ko, but it's pretty bad. [00:05:38] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Riot's had a couple of misses with those. I didn't even think about that. We got to get Riot's acronym team. Some. Some more supporting Staff here. Yeah, I think that I got two big thoughts that come with it. One, I really. This is a nitpicky one, but I really wish a C was in the acronym because both CB Lowell and LCS had a C. That just would have been a nice, like, little. Little mini thematic unifying thing. Lca, League Championship of Americas just makes so much more sense. But apparently that was already, like, a copy or trademarked acronym in some kind of way that they weren't able to utilize. That's at least the rumor that I've heard. LCA seems like it would have been the clear upgrade over lta. Because you're right, Mizzell. It's like T is the. Doesn't make sense. If you just said, like, League Championship of the Americas, that makes more sense. And we still get LC s, but not S anymore. It's A and then C below. You at least get the C in there, and that'd just be like a nice little unified thing. Number two, I kind of think it would be cool if it was just League America's North, League America south, lan, and loss. But I guess we needed a unified one because we're both under the same umbrella. But I think we missed an opportunity to just call ourselves land. We're on land, baby. We're playing on Land. All right. Any final thoughts on the name, at least before we get into the structure and what the format is going to look like? [00:07:11] Speaker D: LCS died for this. [00:07:13] Speaker B: Yep. It. Yeah, you know what? Maybe. Maybe let's just have a quick moment for lcs. How about that? The name is gone. The brand, it's gone. [00:07:23] Speaker D: I mean, there's literally all gone. Literally. The legacy, everything. [00:07:28] Speaker B: And it feels like we didn't even get a chance to properly say goodbye. [00:07:33] Speaker D: Nope. Because they us on like it was. It was gonna stay. Because I feel like I have the room to talk about it now. Maybe because it's off. It's later now, but at Finals, people representing LCS teams were told not to say anything about a new brand because Riot literally sent out a memo to all the teams saying not to say anything about the new branding because they were thinking about keeping LCs. So even in Finals, teams were led to believe that LCS was going to remain its brand. And that. God, it's just crazy to me, man. It's just crazy. And it's for lta. Like, oh, it. [00:08:10] Speaker B: It's crazy that the indecisiveness lasted so long that now we don't get a proper goodbye. Yeah, we don't have a final LCS show that, yes, it would be emotional and hard to watch because it is the goodbye, but at least the closure of that I think there's value in. So I don't know if they have plans to do anything in the off season or before next split starts up because we know the start of next split. There is at least a little bit of time in 2025 that maybe they could try and do. I guess that's a natural segue into that next thing, which is lta winter split. We are going to the three split format. Big surprise. This was heavily rumored, all but confirmed because everyone else had already started putting out their announcements for it actually. Has LPL made any announcements about what next year's? Okay, so they're the last of like the major regions. [00:09:01] Speaker D: Yeah, it looks like it. [00:09:02] Speaker B: Although now there's only five regions. Think about that. There are no minor regions next year. [00:09:08] Speaker D: That's wild to think about all downsizing, as Hawk was saying. [00:09:13] Speaker B: Yeah. But let's talk about at least the format. Bickle, do you mind me throwing it back over to you since you were the one to do it last week? [00:09:19] Speaker A: Sure thing. So for the format, we're going to be split into the winter, the spring and the summer. So we're going to start out in the winter, which is going to be a big tournament. Basically what it is is the north and the south are going to be playing best of three. It's going to be completely fearless. It's going to be a bracket where the teams are seeded. I want to say based off of win. Summer, I'm guessing we don't know how they're seeded yet, but double elimination where the top four teams from the north and the south then qualify to a cross region playoffs and the winner of that will qualify for the end. I think there's an actual name for this tournament now from first. [00:10:12] Speaker B: No, I don't. I haven't seen it. I still. They were calling it just the first international tournament. [00:10:16] Speaker A: They do have an official name. It is First Stand. Yeah, they dropped. [00:10:22] Speaker D: That's what the article has. [00:10:24] Speaker A: It was during, I believe, the media day for World Finals. They gave us a lot of info in regards to next year. First Stand will be your first international event taking place in the LCK studio in Seoul, Korea, South Korea. MSI will be in Canada this year and Worlds will be held in China. But cool, back to format. So that is going to be best of threes with, I want to say one or two best of fives in there. Actually one best of five in there. For the inter region finals to determine who goes to first stand. That is all going to be fearless. Now for split number two. [00:11:10] Speaker B: Real quick, I believe was. Was this confirmed or am I just making this with my head? I believe it was January 27th. It's the last weekend of January. Or did I just make that up in my head? I thought. I thought that there was something about that. [00:11:21] Speaker A: I have not heard anything, but I trust you more than I trust it. [00:11:24] Speaker B: Wouldn'T even be the 27th that does. It's not even. I think it might be like the 25th. 26th. I could be making that up. I thought I had seen something in one of the announcements that it was the last week of January. So we actually have like a little bit early on, but grain of salt. I don't remember where I actually saw that. [00:11:39] Speaker A: All right, now split 2 is a format we've all seen in a format I don't think as many people like as we had moved away from it. But we are back to double round robin best of ones in the regular season. No fearless or anything like that. Going into split playoffs, top six teams, top four get double Elim. Winner of that for the north and for the south will qualify to msi. [00:12:04] Speaker B: Back to festival ones. I just like, okay, we're gonna get into the summer changes in a second here, but I'll even preview this by saying it feels like some of these format changes were decided as just like a it. You know, let's just do it. Because it'll be different and it'll feel different. Not because there's actually like a rhyme or reason love for like in competitive integrity or like, you know, viewer engagement or anything like that. It just feels weird. Like they're just kind of throwing stuff at the board here. [00:12:32] Speaker A: It feels like a step back. It honestly does. [00:12:37] Speaker B: What do we think, Hawk? Mizel, Change the best of ones for only the second split? [00:12:43] Speaker C: I mean, I think aside from even just like the best of ones in the second split thing, which is disappointing. This whole. The whole format is very much a throw shit at the wall and see what sticks kind of design philosophy. And I don't think that's inherently bad. [00:12:59] Speaker B: But that's what they're doing. Guys. [00:13:01] Speaker C: I don't think part of the reason why this is happening. [00:13:04] Speaker A: You want that's at the walls. You haven't heard about summer yet. [00:13:09] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Okay. All right, well, tell us about it. It's kind of crazy. [00:13:13] Speaker A: I will explain this the best I can. I thought the LCK format was confusing. Congratulations, lcs for confusing me even more. So week one this is. These are best of threes again. Week one teams will be matched up based off the end of split two standings. One will play eight, two will play seven, et cetera, et cetera. [00:13:37] Speaker B: So you basically get seeded based on how you do in spring. Split end of spring is seeding going into summer. [00:13:44] Speaker A: After that, for after weeks one and after week two, the teams at the bottom of the standings will then pick who they play of the top four teams with the worst team choosing first. [00:14:03] Speaker B: So we get like a little mini draft show at the end of the week where the bottom teams get to pick who they're going to play against in the next week. [00:14:11] Speaker A: Yep. And that happens after week one and again after week two. And that is the bottom four teams based on standings, not just who loses that week. After week three, the highest ranked teams get to pick their opponent for next week. As in week four, the bottom two teams are eliminated. [00:14:33] Speaker B: Yep. [00:14:36] Speaker A: From everything. [00:14:37] Speaker B: Then okay, yeah, no finish up then I'm going to hop in with a point. [00:14:41] Speaker A: Then in week five, the next two teams are eliminated into the bottom parts of playoffs. Or is this a double elim format? [00:14:52] Speaker B: And it basically is. So think of it this way. This is how I'm framing it. If you're, if you look, I encourage you to google right now. If you haven't seen it, google the article that they put out and follow along or watch the video and pause it at that point. If you look at the breakdown of the five weeks, it makes a lot more sense if you think about it as a three week split, two week playoffs, double elim playoffs. Bottom teams get eliminated right away. It's not technically that, but we basically snuck playoffs into the regular season because teams are getting eliminated in the regular season. Even though they're not calling it that, but then also that switch of the bottom teams pick their opponents versus oh no, now the top teams are picking their opponents going into week four. It's because week four is kind of the beginning of playoffs because we no longer have a true playoffs. We're now doing the regional inter regional tournament between the north and the South. So this is kind of like a quasi playoff two week period for us. [00:15:50] Speaker A: After week four, seeds seven and eight will be eliminated. After week five, seeds five and six will be eliminated. And after week six, seed four will be eliminated. The top three teams will qualify to the regional championship between the top three seeds of the north and the top three seeds of the South. Seed one coming into the regional finals from both the north and the south will automatically qualify for playoffs and will face off against each other with the winner going straight to the grand finals. [00:16:23] Speaker B: Meanwhile, they automatically qualify for top three. So, so I actually got confirmation. I talk, I talked to Mark Z about this in particular because I was like, why is it such a massive advantage to be first seed? And he was like, well, that way you're guaranteed minimum bottom or top three and you will make it to Worlds then. So if you lose, you go to the lower bracket finals. If you win, you go to grand final because the worst you can then place is third. [00:16:49] Speaker D: Yep. [00:16:49] Speaker A: So seed one of the north play seed one of the South. Winner of that goes straight to the finals. Loser of that will drop down to the third place match where the winner of the third place match faces off against the winner in finals. And then see 2 and 3 of the north and South will face off and go through the lower bracket where the last team standing of those will be the final world's representative. So there's guaranteed to be a world's rep from the north and the south with the final team standing from the north and south also gaining that last seed. [00:17:22] Speaker B: That was not confusing at all. That made complete sense. Personally, I thought that was well articulated. Well done, Bickle. Mizel, how many weeks are there? We're doing a pop quiz to see who's paying attention. [00:17:40] Speaker D: 5. [00:17:40] Speaker B: I was actually wrong. There's 6. But I just learned from Bickle. That was a trick question because I said five and Bickles. So I got him. Haha. Hawk, how many seeds are we sending to Worlds? Two from. [00:17:58] Speaker C: Well, one from the north, one from the south, and then one more. That's anyone's game. [00:18:02] Speaker B: There we go. And we're calling that lower bracket the Gulag. I don't, I don't care about anybody else because the, the top two teams are getting in. But then everyone else has a battle out there. Gonna be like what, six other teams fighting it out for the last spot, which is gonna be way more exciting, I will say, than the teams that we just know are making it because they're fighting for seating and nothing else. Okay, now that we have all the information, the bulk of that again, just gut checks. We're gonna go same orders before hot. Gut check on the format. What are your thoughts on it? Do you like it? What do you not like about it? [00:18:36] Speaker C: I mean, I basically already articulated my thoughts. It's interesting, you know, I'm not gonna sit here and say it's great or bad. Like I honestly just don't know. I Think we're gonna have to see how everything plays out. It's definitely riot trying new things, though. I can say that with certainty. [00:18:50] Speaker B: Throwing shit at the wall, see what sticks. God, that. What a visual. So let's get your gut instinct. What are your initial thoughts on the format? [00:19:00] Speaker D: I think it'll make it interesting. I think it's gonna be a little harder to, like, say I'm a. Like, I don't know, build that fandom for the actual region itself. I think there will still be a lot of the fandom for the teams, but I'm very curious if it's going to enable people to be a fan of the league itself. [00:19:17] Speaker B: Yes. Especially with a brand new league. I really do think there was brand power and just calling it the lcs. It's gonna be way harder to get people that used to watch left and are like, nostalgic and like, oh, maybe I'll check it out. Like, what do they even look up if they search lcs, are they gonna be able to find it? It's gonna be interesting to think about. Pickle, final thoughts here before we get into the rest of news. [00:19:43] Speaker A: I give them props for trying something new. It's just a little bit confusing and hard to follow along with. [00:19:52] Speaker B: Yeah, and there was one other little thing I'll add here because I've been asking a lot of questions about this, curious about it, and I got confirmation as well from Mark Z. His DMS are open for people that he follows back, and he's been very responsive for random questions. I think that what he initially said to me is like, yeah, I'm expecting a lot of questions around the format still, but I asked him about the LLA teams. What is going on with their residency status? If there is an LLA team in the north and an LLA team in the south, how do residency rules apply to those teams? Do they count as north and south players? If they're on those rosters, can they bring on. Are they. Do they follow the same rules as everybody else? Like, LA isn't a region. So, like, how the hell does that work? Now, the way it was explained was it is not region based, it is team based. So the LLA teams still have their own bracket that they are in and they follow the rules that would apply to their bracket, which is they can have a. They have to have at least two Latin American players, and then they could still have the one Brazilian player and they could still have two imports in the north and in the south, but they cannot have, like two Louisiana players. And then a Brazilian player and. Or like I guess. I guess NA players would count as like as imports for them technically because their team is not a native to that region. It's still confusing. It's so weird. They're basically like guest teams from a region that doesn't exist anymore. But he said the rules will be the same for them. Just imagine that LLA exists and it makes sense. And honestly that is the cleanest solution I think. But I still had questions about it so I'm happy that those at least got cleared up. Bickley got point it it's just a. [00:21:43] Speaker A: Minor thing because we started talking about teams. We did get confirmation about the eight teams that will be in the north, eight teams that will be in the south. Relatively expected Fly team, Liquid Cloud 9, Dig and Shopify are going to be your standard teams. Lion Gaming, which is a joint venture between Rainbow 7 and 6K down in the LLA will be joining as your LLA team, disguised as we previously mentioned, will be your guest spot. Hundred Thieves will be a provisional guest spot and we got more info about what that means. They have sold their spot back to Riot so they are in a sense leaving the league. But Riot saying okay, we bought the spot back. So for this year you're going to be the team that represents the spot. We don't know what that will incorporate going forward, but 100 Thieves has sold their spot in the league. Essentially. [00:22:40] Speaker B: Yeah, they're on the way out, which is a bummer. I will say that I don't know how everyone else feels about it. Hundred Thieves are a fun brand and a cool team to have in the league and I am sad to see them go. Energy less so. I think that there was potential if they had wanted to stick around. Immortals07, good luck in your future endeavors. But like Hundred Thieves, man, this one hurts the most. Mizel. [00:23:05] Speaker D: Yeah, I was a huge fan of the like I even was looking through my closet just yesterday and came across the 2018 LCS Finals. The the first one with Huni and where they had those like really cool bright braid jerseys going there. It was like the baseball jerseys. [00:23:24] Speaker B: Oh yeah, those ones were so cool. [00:23:26] Speaker D: It was such a cool entrance and I was so proud to see a team like Heist was one of the literally one of the first like vlog contents I ever actually got attached to as an LCS fan. It was so well made but it was so good at seeing the players and like the organization and everything. It just felt like it was a wholesome built organization. I think we've gotten way far away from that now and obviously they've grown tremendously because of a lot of the things they've done outside of League of Legends. But it was a brand that I was always a big fan of and I'm very sad that they are looking to leave. [00:24:00] Speaker B: It is a bummer. [00:24:01] Speaker A: It's especially really tough with the fact that they were literally just at Worlds. It explains why Riot seemed like, yeah, if we, if you're gonna go and we're buying back the slot, we really would like to have you for another season. Because really awkward. Like, hey, they just went to Worlds and now they're not here anymore. [00:24:17] Speaker D: Well, now it's a lot of like developing talent that's now just going to be without a team next year. [00:24:24] Speaker B: Yep, everyone's. I hopefully, hopefully a lot of people are scrambling to figure out how do we get Sniper. [00:24:31] Speaker D: Yeah, well, he was always like, did you see his pose the other day? He was like going into 2026 or something. It's like the LeBron, like, I'm pumped up, like I'm gonna win everything kind of thing. So he's already like, he knows what's coming, so he knows what this year means. [00:24:47] Speaker B: There's a lot of promising talent on that roster, a lot of really good talent as well that should get picked up and moved around. [00:24:55] Speaker A: And it's a minor thing for the South. It's again, as expected, Fluxo Furia, Loud Pain, Redkinids and Vivo Keyd are your main teams with Leviathan being the LLA team and Isserus, another LLA team will represent your guest spot down in the South. [00:25:11] Speaker B: I think it's cool having two LLA teams getting a chance down there. We didn't really talk about. But Disguised being the guest team for the North's first split, I think obviously I know more about the North. Maybe there are CB Lowell or Brazilian orgs that like, there's arguments they should have been given that guest spot. But LLA is really going boom and they're taking the worst end of this entire deal. So I think I'm happy at least they get a second representative somewhere. But Disguised in the north is also very exciting. For anybody who doesn't know, Disguised is Toast Disguised Toast's team, he's a streamer and he made his own org. They compete in a couple of different games, but League is the big one that we obviously follow because it's a game that we cover. And they were in NACL. They won summer of 2023 and then they've been competitive at least for the other splits, they haven't really achieved that same height, but their rosters definitely changed up, especially because after their summer win everybody got picked up. Their roster pretty much just all got promoted to lcs. So yeah, it's gonna be cool to see them in. I know that Doublelift, Skaara, Cutie Pie and Pobelter have been streaming with Toast joking that that's the roster and it's gonna be those five players. So if you're a big double lift and I'm a Cutie Pie fan, he's been playing Yorick support on stream so maybe look forward to that. Who knows. [00:26:38] Speaker A: And the CB Law teams that we are saying goodbye to officially two people probably haven't heard of before, Liberty and Los Grandes, but two that have a bit more history have been on the international stage. INTZ had a couple reps in there. I want to say they even beat EDG at one point like back in 2016 or something. They took a game and the team of Legend, the team that Cloud 9 did it for zero sevens. Goodbye Kaboom. This is for Kaboom. [00:27:08] Speaker B: This is for Kaboom. That's a sad one to say goodbye to. [00:27:11] Speaker D: That is very sad actually. [00:27:13] Speaker B: Yeah, a bit of a bummer. We're losing a lot of legacies, man. We're losing recipes out here with all these old orgs going away but I mean the future is uncertain but hopefully it is built upon and turned into something good. But we're spending a lot of time on this. This is the world's proper episode, so going to move us along a little bit faster here. LCP is also happening. That is going to be the League Championship of the Pacific. We'll just quickly cover the teams announced there. Flying Oysters, Softbank, Hawks, PSG and GAM are the partner teams with Chiefs, dfm, Wales and Vikings as guest teams. So a lot of guest teams over there. We'll cover probably more of that later on in different episodes because I do again want to keep more of our focus on Worlds, which we haven't really covered yet. Real fast Bagel, how can you lightning through these roster rumors that we have? [00:28:02] Speaker A: I can lightning through these. The only thing we have confirmed right now is Tomo has parted ways with 100 thieves. He stepped in, got them to Worlds, is now back on the market as a free agent. Now starting off in I guess the LTA North Lion Gaming. The new Louisiana team seems to have a roster confirmed. We had already heard about the fact they were looking at Licorice alongside keeping Two of their normal vets and now seem to be bringing in two Korean imports in Saint and Henna. Saint is coming from the lower LCK academy. Henna I believe is coming from Bro in the main LCK disguised seems to bring back Abadage to the LCS adjacent as the mid laner. TL is bringing in Swiffer as their assistant coach. Swiffer notably has been the head coach of SK over in the LEC for quite a few. For quite a bit. Flyquest seems to be resigning Nuke, Duck and Mithy to their coaching staff while Shopify Rebellion is bringing in SEOs, a Brazilian support player as their support. Meanwhile, over in the LEC we have a bit of info as well. SK signing Lupi as their support to reunite with Rahel. Down on the bot side, GX seems to have rounded up their roster, bringing lot and closer to Turkish players. Lot coming from the TCL in the EU Masters while closer just coming off his time at K Corp. Fnatic big bot lane signing. We already knew that they were losing their bot lane, but bringing in Upset and Mickey X, that's a big bot lane signing for them. [00:29:32] Speaker B: Oh yeah, that has some potential right there. Like if they click. [00:29:37] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And the one thing to note outside, obviously there's a lot of rumors going on in the LCK and the LPL that we're not as caught up with, but publicly T1 players have stated that they want to stay together and they want to run it back another year. Going for the three Pete. [00:29:52] Speaker B: Hell yeah. I mean, that's. [00:29:54] Speaker D: I can go over there. [00:29:55] Speaker B: Yeah, Mazel. [00:29:56] Speaker D: If we want to. Just really quick, it seems like viewership went down by like 40% on the Chinese side last year, which is very, very bad. A lot of the organizations, four of them to be exact, want to be out of LPL now, including some legacy organizations, and already rumored is that we're going to be losing one team this next year, two teams the next year after that. [00:30:21] Speaker B: All right, 17 is a big league, but interesting to see that LPL, even them might be taking some hits. [00:30:30] Speaker D: I'm telling you, I said it before and I saw say it a million times again. LPL really needed that win. [00:30:35] Speaker B: That. So close. Yeah, so close. Damn. [00:30:38] Speaker D: But Riot just had to have their faker story. [00:30:40] Speaker B: Yeah, they had the Skins team, man, that button that they get, they don't. [00:30:44] Speaker D: Care about a region dying. They care about having that one more skin line for faker, you know? [00:30:49] Speaker B: Yeah. They have to change the Ari skin now to add a fifth trophy. [00:30:53] Speaker D: You know who Needs millions of fans in China when you can have the line of skins for one player. [00:30:58] Speaker B: Well, viewership might have been down in LPL on the Chinese side, but at least globally for Worlds it seems to have been up. That's the next news story here that will transition us into our world's coverage. Is that peak viewership 6.94 million, I believe, was the final thing. Do you remember what's the source on that one, Bickel? Because I saw a couple different numbers going around. That's the highest I've seen. [00:31:22] Speaker A: That is coming from esports charts. They tend to be pretty accurate and keep viewership numbers. That is obviously the worldwide viewership, excluding China. They never get Chinese numbers in there. That is the new record for league viewership for anything and beating the previous record of last year's final by about half a million. [00:31:49] Speaker B: And is this. I also saw something. This is the most watched esport event ever, right? [00:31:55] Speaker A: I believe that is the case, yes. [00:31:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't remember where I saw that one. So again, grain of salt. But either way that's a big success, at least globally, internationally, viewer numbers, viewership numbers are still doing very well. The individual regions seem to be struggling heavily, but come international events, it does get back up. And I think that makes sense. You know, Riot Global leadership was like, let's make a third tournament. Let's just throw a third international in there. Maybe that'll solve all of our issues and get more people caring about our game. Because that's also where they sell more partnerships, sell more ads and hopefully, fingers crossed, make some frickin money. Because if Riot is still not making any money off of esports anywhere, that's a problem. That's a problem for our scene. But yeah, that's cool. Cool to see the viewership still going up. Finals MVP also, that was announced at the end of the show. Obviously we'll get into the proper conversation here with the start of that because what do you know? For the second time in his career and the only player now to win World's Finals MVP twice, it's Faker. He is the highest mountain, the longest river, and he did it again. Hawk, I'm going to give it to you to start here because you had Faker as your prediction for MVP for Finals. So this is your podium to gloat. [00:33:23] Speaker C: Didn't I make a joke on the pod last week? Something to the effect of Faker is going to win this one for him or something like that. Even though he's saying he's going to win it for everyone else I feel like that's what happened. Like literally it gets to game four and the goat decided to remind everyone why he's the goat. It was absolutely sensational what he managed to do. I thought across the course of the series he played very well. Yeah, I don't know, I just had a feeling, you know, I figured it wouldn't be Zeus just because of the bin factor. Although I think Zeus played very well and you know, the bottom lane could have been one of them, but I don't know. Faker. Faker was just feeling it and yeah. [00:34:05] Speaker B: Faker was just feeling it. [00:34:07] Speaker A: Pickle T1 Faker has confirmed that he is the second greatest player of all time behind only SKT Faker. It's absurd. He has had two world class legendary GOAT careers. In one career, it's in one unheard of. [00:34:27] Speaker B: And I will even say it. I actually, I'm going to make this statement. I want everyone to say if they agree or not. Games 4 and 5 was the best Faker world's performance we've ever seen. That was. He actually peaked in his 11th year, 12th year or something playing League of Legends in Games 4 and 5. He was playing the best league of Legends that I have ever seen him play. Critique me. Is this a correct statement? Does anybody agree or who disagrees? And what. Where do you think he was better at any points in his career? Bagel, it looks like you have a reaction already. So let's start with you. [00:35:00] Speaker A: I'm trying to think because if it's not, it's damn close. Especially game four. The last time we saw a performance like this, it's fitting that Game 5 faker pulled out the Gallio because I want to say the last time we saw Faker doing anything like this was 2017 semifinals on the Gallio against RNG. [00:35:23] Speaker B: Yeah. And not to like you said, game four was the Silas too. That Rakan Old Steel play in mid lane is going to live in my brain for the rest of my life. [00:35:32] Speaker A: He won the game. He won them the series. It's yeah absurd. [00:35:37] Speaker B: One lane, he won everything. He just woke up and decided we're down to series, we're going to win it. Mizzell, what do you think? [00:35:42] Speaker D: Dragon? He was dragging some bodies across the finish line, that's for sure. Yep, it worked out all right. [00:35:49] Speaker B: Mizzo, what do you think about the statement? Do you agree? Do you disagree? [00:35:55] Speaker D: Singularly? I think yeah, that's probably the greatest because it literally was just him making it happen. [00:36:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that in the past he Even if he has, like, been playing at a higher level. He did. He's never deserved MVP more than his performances from Games 4 and 5. He is the reason that they won, and it was his direct impact on the game. Hawk. All right, saved you for last. What do you think about the statement? [00:36:21] Speaker C: The statement being sorry that this Games. [00:36:25] Speaker B: 4 and 5 was the peak of Faker's competitive performance, that that was the best that he has ever performed at Worlds. [00:36:34] Speaker C: I. Hmm. [00:36:38] Speaker B: It's a tough question. It's a tough statement, I guess. [00:36:41] Speaker C: I. I think it's too hard to definitively say whether or not that statement is true. Like, you know what I mean? Because there's so many great games. But, you know, these came in the right moment. And I think it's about the point in his career. Kind of. Kind of like what Bickle was saying. You know, we're like, he. The fact that he's still doing this now, I think is the real story. So that's probably where. Where my thoughts are. [00:37:08] Speaker B: And I. A part of it, to me, is also that Knight had played this series so well, and then Faker just was able to do that to that player. Yeah, like, Knight was. [00:37:19] Speaker C: No, Knight had a great series. [00:37:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Knight was still playing well, I thought, and Faker still beat him. It didn't really. It felt kind of like the Chovy store. Chovy said this before was like. It didn't feel like I was bad. It felt like he was just better. And like, that's. That's how it felt like watching Knight, like, Knight still played incredibly well. Faker is. Was just better in those last two games. So that's where the statement mostly comes from. But let's at least go through the games because we are into the final series here. [00:37:48] Speaker A: Game one, Slight, absurd Faker stat here. Faker now has more finals. World Finals MVPs than he has Pentakills. What Faker in his career has one. Pentakill? [00:38:05] Speaker C: Yeah, it's pretty insane. [00:38:06] Speaker B: That's wild. All right. That just broke my brain. While I'm recovering from that, somebody else talked about game one, then, mazel. Let's have you talk about game one. Because BLG came out the gate swinging. BLG looked definitively like they just were ready to smash T1 in this finals based on game one. [00:38:26] Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, they used a really good composition, which we were questioning how they got that composition in the first place. Red side. [00:38:33] Speaker B: They got Skarner, Ash. What the fuck? [00:38:36] Speaker D: But then being able to confidently execute that against them was super big. I Think they played really well with tempo and especially like how they were dictating the map and didn't really give T1 a chance to think. And I think we got to the point where you could see that early execution was a benefit for blg. But if they weren't able to hold on, then things got a little bit dicey because that game was very dominant and it showed off a lot of the best things of blg. But I feel like there were still some moments where you're like, all right, there were some slip ups, like, especially in the side lane that I feel like timing could have been a little bit better. But overall I think it was probably the best game from blg. [00:39:11] Speaker B: I believe it was the fastest just by a little bit because the first three were all pretty fast games, but this was the fastest of the series. And it also started off with first blood on Gumayushi with a late invade Level one. And then game two, same freaking thing happens. It's just a level one invade delayed and they kill Gumayushi both times. But game two, unfortunately, things did not really pick up for them after that first blood. I don't remember who got. Was it Ben or Elk that got first blood? Does anybody remember? I think it was Elk. [00:39:45] Speaker D: Yeah, it was Elk, yeah. [00:39:47] Speaker B: Because he came back with a longsword in lane with Ash versus the Kalista, which theoretically should just smash. But it was more so, you know, mid lane getting slight leads and then Gumi Yushi showing up when it mattered in fights with Caria, having a monster performance on the Renata Glask and really turning things around. And first two games kind of smashes both ways. Game one was like 27 minutes. Game two is 27 and a half, both of which ending with basically the same gold leads for each team. And honestly, game two, I feel like there weren't like that. I don't remember a lot of highlights from this outside of that level one invade. Am I just high or did not like a lot of other crazy stuff happening? The score lines are crazy. [00:40:34] Speaker D: No, no, I think it was. I mean, it was a pretty interesting early game, but it was more so like the. The turnaround. I think that was the most important part. [00:40:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Also this is what really solidified T1's heavy focus on playing for grubs, playing for the top half of the map. Game one, they tried to and they were just too far behind. But game two, they tried to again and this time they were able to get those. And that's where the Paranoia plus the Orn combo of all things was really able to pull things out for them. Tough to play into both those champs. Plus even like the the Renata glass you turn the lights off and then suddenly that hostile takeover is much harder to dodge. So yeah, game two it's just kind of slobber knockers back and forth and it continues into game three where Billy Billy gaming again just kind of smack them this time around. Elk does not lose Lane. He does get the better of Gumayushi on his own callista this time. But I think the big one here was the Kindred Jungle pick for June. So Mizel, how standard was this draft for BLG and how do you feel about their execution of it? [00:41:45] Speaker D: No, I thought the draft was stock standard for blg. I think they relied on the kind of carry performance from Shin later on in the season before he got replaced obviously by way. But I think the Kindred showed that they can change the style into more more of an aggressive focus through jungle instead of just playing towards Bot Lane or playing towards these solo lanes. Which I thought was a really good look from BLG especially being able to execute that against T1 itself. [00:42:12] Speaker B: I also think this was Ben putting Zs in the bin. [00:42:15] Speaker D: Oh for sure though. At least the one game. [00:42:18] Speaker B: At least the one game. This is what I kind of expected for most of the series. But at least game three Ben was able to show up. But the big pick here was the blitz Crank for On that really threw everything on its head because suddenly carriers run out of glass. He's looking much squishier, much less safe. When you see that blitzy crank on the other team. [00:42:37] Speaker D: I'm not gonna lie. I wish they would have grabbed it for game five. You know they hovered. It would've been nice. [00:42:42] Speaker B: Would have been nice. But that gets us more into the series. Game four, this is the one. This one was back and forth for quite a while until T1 started to run away with it off of the play from Faker night on the smolder had was kind of behind in Stanx if I remember. He was like slightly behind the curve but he was still got to three items almost to a fourth item and was at that point. But then Faker just pulls off this insane play at the very end. Gumayushi on the Ash also found a couple of really good arrows and owners. Poppy just made it so impossible for like Ran Sejuani Nard actually engage and get in onto T1. And yeah, that faker play that's going to go down as one of his highlights, I think all time career plays. He is a flanking mix. Mid lane, he steals ons Rakan ult, charms up on flashes in body, charms knight and elk, and then they just blow up the carries. [00:43:38] Speaker C: T1 had some crazy good wombo combos throughout that series. Whether or not they were set up by Faker though, like I think of in game two, the combo with carrier was also very satisfying. You know, unfortunate Xinjiang Ult from Shun, whatever. But like they set that play up so well and so like I, I think in general that squad was so beautifully coordinated throughout the series. It was really fun to watch. For that reason. [00:44:07] Speaker B: This really did feel like some of the, I mean no, no surprise, it is the finals. Some of the highest level gameplay that we had seen all year between these two teams. They both were firing on all cylinders. And blg again, I think they had an avenue, but Faker just found that play and then the game's pretty much over afterwards. If that didn't happen, there's a chance that smolder keeps scaling, gets that fourth item and it's just overbearing. You know, you can't deal with a dragon at that point. So what could have been is not what was. It left us with a game five silver scrapes to decide it all. And what do you know, Mazell, it's been first pick jacks, it's night getting the Ari, it's elk on the Kaiser Comfort picks for BLG in the game 5 World's Finals against the protagonists of League of Legends. And I mean, Knight played really well. [00:45:04] Speaker D: Yeah, definitely did. Game five was interesting. It. It just felt like blg cut to a point. Like I don't even know if they were really trying in the end. Right? Like it felt like mentally they were kind of broken because a lot of the plays they were just desperately looking for something. Because I can't tell you how many times in game four and game five fucking Faker got out with like literally no health every single time. And I'm sure that like, you know when you play a game of League of Legends, there's a person on the enemy team that's gotten out of a fight like four times in a row with no health. Like you're like, I gotta kill that person. And I swear to God, like four, Game four and five, there were so many plays. I was just like, we have to get this person, we have to get this person not realizing what else is going on the map. And the fact that five people are Collapsing on you. And that wasn't just in that game five, the deciding moment. That was across game four and game five. [00:45:56] Speaker B: Yeah, the fact that Knight still played the fights really well, but Faker also kind of beat him in lane, I think put a target on his back. They made a lot of plays on the faker in the mid lane, which is why he was able to escape with a sliver of a health bar multiple times. But that is tilting. It's like, why can't we freaking kill this guy? Like he's so low. And he did have some backup from owner and Carrier, but the big play was at the very end when Zayas is alone topside. BLG full send collapsing onto Gragas who has the Zonias. And it's just a hard out play from T1. There isn't a point where I noticed or I didn't even notice this in the moment, but people were talking about on social media and online after the fact. Knight was TP in. If his TP goes off, BLG probably sweep that fight that Ari was fed and ready to carry. But Carrier makes the hero play and cancels Knights TP with the keeper's verdict of poppy. And that's why BLG wasn't able to turn the play they were calling for the tp. They thought they were going to get it. And Carrier walked upwards into Fog of War and then doubled back once the TP started channeling and canceled it. And that was the big difference maker. So it's crazy looking back at that moment, being like BLG when we were watching like what are you doing? Like what the hell, you full committed. But it's like if Ahri's there, it's actually really different. [00:47:18] Speaker C: So also you can also play so hard because they turned off Elk's dps like a lot. The Kaisa did not get to hit in that play. I don't think the play design was bad for blg, honestly, but. [00:47:29] Speaker D: But it wasn't Judge like, yeah, we can look at that moment because that was like the deciding mode. They literally lost because of that fight. But it wasn't just that play. It was like in game four, the chase behind Dragon Pit where they're literally chasing Faker into his red buff. Like there was a lot of these plays and you just tell it was like mentally taxing to be able to pickle it. [00:47:50] Speaker B: Look like you wanted to hop in there with a point off of the incredible play. [00:47:54] Speaker A: Yeah, it was just crazy all around. It was actually. It was max range on that popular to interrupt the TP carry played it so well. And it just hurts because you could see the thought process that was coming in. BLG had the possibility, but it felt like they got broken by that Faker play in game four because they had the scaling comp. They were starting to scale. They had the smolder stacks, the zigz was poking. They were doing all the good and they had survived to get online and were starting to come back. They had won a fight. And then all of a sudden Faker just ends them right then and there. And also you gotta shout out Zeus for the fact that he goes down 03 being dove twice and ganked once by Sejuani and just finds a way to still be useful in the game. [00:48:46] Speaker B: In that Game four. [00:48:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Game four on the Rumble. [00:48:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Was playing kind of weak side. Was playing from behind quite often, but at the end there, I mean. And yes, it was T1 collapsing on the dive, but he had to play that perfectly. Thrown out the explosive barrel onto Elk and then zonizing in time so he doesn't die. Elk, like you said, cannot DPS at all once Faker comes in. Yeah, what a. What a play. But that was literally the game deciding moment right there after that fight. Boom. Gold graft just plummets and T1 just close out the game. Basically. They win the fight, they go to Baron, they push in. Games done. So it is crazy how different a world could be if that night TP goes off and how that kind of was the series and Worlds finals deciding play from Carrier canceling that tp. I still agree that Faker deserves mvp. But all that was to say, I think carry a runner up. So I wasn't that far off my prediction. All right, now that we've gone through the series and we've had time to reflect on what happened, let's talk about what the kind of legacy has been left after the fact. This is the fifth win for Faker and the T1 dynasty. And now the question in everyone's mind. I don't even know if it's a question. It's basically a statement everyone's making. This is the best roster that we've ever seen in League of Legends. They won worlds back to back. [00:50:17] Speaker A: It's crazy just what this roster has accomplished. They were a one game away from not even making Worlds this year. But also they're one game away from a three peat. They went to game five against DRX two years ago and were in a solid position to win that game. It's absurd. And looking at this roster, I want to say Mike and many names in our discord brought this up. You can make an argument that each of these players is now the best in their role all time. [00:50:53] Speaker D: And I think it's all time. [00:50:56] Speaker A: Yeah. For all five of them. I think I'd give it to, like three of them. [00:51:01] Speaker B: In all honesty, that's a much harder statement to make. [00:51:07] Speaker D: I do not agree with that. [00:51:10] Speaker B: Trying to think who. Who else is Barrel Give it to. [00:51:12] Speaker D: One of them twice. I think we all know who that is. [00:51:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I think. [00:51:15] Speaker C: I think Carrier also has a very strong claim. [00:51:19] Speaker B: Barrels, the competition. Right. And Barrel also is cracked. [00:51:24] Speaker C: And like, I think it's fair to say, and I'm actually curious, maybe we can have this conversation. I think Carrier has been the stronger individual player in his peaks. Even though Barrel provided a lot of value to the teams he was on. I think Kerria, like, in terms of his mechanics and positioning and fight setups, is the greatest support of all time. And Barrel provided a lot in terms of his wacky picks and his leadership. Mata, you know, reinvented the vision game. Like, that's all fine, but that's sort of where I'm at in this discussion, at least. [00:51:58] Speaker D: I'll just fight back and say that this is definitely recency bias for sure, because I think you. I don't know, maybe. Maybe I'm the only one, but I guess the world championship is our biggest event. It is the major thing. But I don't think you can discount domestic dominance and things like that when you're talking about greatest of all time. You cannot just use a sample side of one tournament and a few games, a few best of fives to determine you are the best player of all time. [00:52:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree with that. I don't think you have to be the best player of all time to win worlds back to back like that. That is not. It's a great feather in your hat, but it is not, like, determinative. [00:52:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't think that's what I'm saying. [00:52:38] Speaker B: Who. [00:52:38] Speaker C: So I'm curious then, who do you have above Carrier? That's one. Because Barrel hasn't won domestic titles. [00:52:46] Speaker D: Mata, I would even. [00:52:48] Speaker B: I would have any. [00:52:50] Speaker D: I would still have like Wolf. I would even have Mako up there as well in top of all Time. Like, I think there's a lot of conversations to have. I don't. I don't think it's as easy as clear cut as you guys are making. [00:53:00] Speaker B: Well, I also think Karia is one of the strongest arguments for absolutely one of the best, if not the best in the world ever at his role. But like, look at Zayas, right? I think, I think like if you look at other members of the roster, the argument gets harder. But I agree with you, Hawk, that Carrie has a really strong argument that he is the best support to ever play the game. I think Barrels the only name, definitely not Wolf. I think Barrel's the one that I have in that conversation alongside of him. But then again, like when we talk about Zeus is then when it kind of starts to be like there's less, considerably less argument there, I'd say Faker is undisputed. [00:53:33] Speaker A: Kerry, I think has earned himself to, in my opinion the top of that list as the greatest support. You can make arguments, but he sits there for me, even not just based off of his accomplishments, but just how he performed consistently and how he's been able to innovate and perform. It's been amazing. Top lane is such a open field. I feel like on who's the best top laner of all time? I think Zeus is scary. I think he's at least put himself in the conversation for that owner and Guma aren't there yet. If they keep going at the pace they're going, they have a chance, but they're not there yet. [00:54:15] Speaker B: Interesting. Well, there's so many legendary 80 carries that like Guma Yushi winning Worlds back to back. Huge. Can be that clutch factor. But yeah, like when you, when you look at every player that's played it, it's a fun thought process to have. I'm happy that we spent some time on that. Let us know in the Discord. Okay, how about that? [00:54:32] Speaker C: What. [00:54:32] Speaker B: What's your all time roster that we don't have to say it now on the pod, but I'm curious from the listeners, your all time greatest of all time roster, what would it look like if you did just like a Worlds. Any decade, any meta, any patch, this player was the best that we've ever seen play the game for their role at that time. So that'd be fun. Let us know in the Discord. But yeah, that means that Worlds was wrapped up. There were a lot of crazy stats that got broken, right? Like you know, the two MVPs for Faker. What was it? T1 has won Worlds being first seed, second seed, third seed and now fourth seed. [00:55:09] Speaker A: We've now had two fourth seat champions from Korea. [00:55:14] Speaker B: That's just silly, man. [00:55:16] Speaker A: Oh, and you shout out the community Discord earlier. Shout outs to new me. They were the top of our league rundown community leaderboard in Pickums with 250 points, beating out Raindrop at 240, who came in second, and Duffy himself, who came in third with 212. [00:55:37] Speaker B: Okay, but we can't give Duffy a podium spot, so who came in fourth? [00:55:41] Speaker A: Me. [00:55:42] Speaker B: Damn it. All right, well. [00:55:45] Speaker A: Free Shooter tied me, so he came in Free shoot. [00:55:48] Speaker B: Okay, Free Shooter. There you go. Shout out to Free Shooter. Yeah. Other crazy stats. What was it like? Yeah, obviously faker is second ever. Back to back winner. First time the same rosters won back to back. There's a lot of stuff that was going on with World's Finals, but that does put a bow on the 2024 competitive year for League of Legends. Yeah, it's. It's been. It's been a long ride. It's now November 5th. As of this recording, it's election day in the U.S. a lot of people have been following that along very closely. But that means that we have about a month, two months before, actually. Yeah, definitely two months before competitive League of Legends will start up again. So there's gonna be a long off season. We have some fun stuff planned for that. A lot of it will be roster news, at least in the immediate future. But then we do have some fun stuff that I'm going to start announcing at the end of this episode for what some of our offseason content plans will be. But before then, I want to give everybody on the pod an opportunity. What was your all time favorite moment from the 2024 competitive scene? Could be from Worlds, but it could be from anywhere else in 2024. I'm going to give you some time to think about that. My favorite was opening weekend for LCS in summer. Just because I went there, I did like a Pantheon cosplay. It's a very subjective thing for me. I just enjoyed the experience. It was a lot of fun. Mizzell, we got. We went together, we carpooled and we just hung out all day and, you know, chilled at LCs. That was a great time. [00:57:15] Speaker D: Good time. [00:57:16] Speaker B: Yeah. What's everybody else's. Mizzell, do you have one? A peak from 2024? [00:57:21] Speaker D: Hmm. I think there was a lot of good moments. It's hard to just choose one, but I think finally seeing BLG win their finals in spring was really awesome. I. I was able to enjoy it more in summer when they won because I wasn't casting it. But yeah, I don't know. After, like all the story of 2023 and like, all the doubts going into the early part of 2024. It was. It was really gratifying. [00:57:52] Speaker B: Hell yeah. [00:57:53] Speaker A: Bickel, I think I'm split here in terms of the LCs. The opening ceremony for the summer finals, where it was kind of an unstated thing of a. This is the final hurrah for the lcs, was really heartwarming. Seeing all those players come out and just feeling that energy. Seeing it end with Winyans was hilarious and almost the most LCS way to send it off, but on a more international stage. Chovy, finally getting his international title is big. Finally gets it. He has deserved it for a while, so it's nice to see him finally have a trophy like that. And I guess Keane as well. Yeah. [00:58:44] Speaker B: Yeah. That MSI run was well deserved, man. I still. At some point, Uzi's gonna come out of retirement, right? He's gonna make one final run. [00:58:51] Speaker D: He's already did that. [00:58:53] Speaker B: Oh, shit. [00:58:53] Speaker D: He is literally one game. He was literally one game away from winning and he played vain and he was popping out of the hell off, but his whole team failed and then they lost. He was 1. One game away from having Uzi back at Worlds. That would have been crazy. [00:59:06] Speaker A: I still think he's a world champion if it's not for Fakers Gallio in 2017, I think RNG. I honestly think. [00:59:12] Speaker D: I think PLG a world champion if not for Faker's Gallo. [00:59:17] Speaker B: Goddamn fakers Gallio Gallo. All right, A. You could wrap us up here. What your favorite moment on League of legends esports from 2024, man. [00:59:30] Speaker C: I mean, it's so many. I really enjoyed finals this year. It was a good experience. Even though I was in Los Angeles. I mean, I can't complain. I didn't have to travel for it. I really enjoyed also, like, I enjoyed so many of the stories. I think the LCS broadcast did a better job of telling player focused stories that actually incorporate their lives outside of League of Legends. And I really enjoyed seeing that. So I think. I think that'll be my answer, you know, like, there was the Masu video and all the talking about, like, AP and Yawn and all of that kind of stuff. It felt like, I don't know, this was one of the better years of LCS in a while. Even though it was like, kind of shit at the same time. You know what I mean? Like, there was like a lot of stuff going on in the background. But this in terms of, like the games and the teams and all that, the broadcast, this was a great year. [01:00:28] Speaker A: We've given We've given props to something from the lcs, the LCK and the lpl lec. Reckless with the world's trophy. He gets his name on it. [01:00:41] Speaker D: True. [01:00:41] Speaker B: He does. He was there. He was on stage. I saw him. [01:00:45] Speaker D: He is a world champion. The only. The only Western player to ever raise. [01:00:50] Speaker B: The world champion since season one. [01:00:52] Speaker D: Technically in freaks basement in freak space. [01:00:56] Speaker B: I hate that. That's like a thing that we have to add, by the way. Like that sucks that World Season 1 did not happen. We should just agree Season 1 is omitted from. [01:01:06] Speaker D: I agree. Can I. Can I add one little thing? It's not as bright and glamorous as. As like tier one competition, but I was very happy that we got an America's Challengers. [01:01:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:18] Speaker D: Really cool to be a part of. [01:01:20] Speaker B: That was an awesome experience. [01:01:22] Speaker D: I don't know if that's what's happening with it next year, but I'm glad that it happened. [01:01:27] Speaker B: I am too. I am too. Yeah. I mean that's something that we knew behind the scenes have been working on for like two years. [01:01:33] Speaker D: Yep. [01:01:35] Speaker B: And it finally came through. Maybe a one and done. Who knows? We have no idea what that looks like behind the scenes, but based on how much budgets have been pinched on the major regions, I wouldn't be surprised if that was a bit of a one and done. But hopefully there are more opportunities for it next year. I really do think that there's a audience for that. So just comes down to, you know, marketing it correctly, promoting it. I think I jumped the gun slightly because we were going to take a little bit of time to go over our worlds predictions for some of the awards that we gave out. We're not going to do all of them, but let's at least hit some of the highlights here. First up, our rundown Knighthood award. Which player is overhyped? I think that me and Bickle both ate a little bit of shit with this one. I put faker, Pickle put carrier. Surprise. They both won Worlds. So I think, I think safe to say we both failed this assignment. But Hawk and Mongoose both put Showmaker. Hawk, I'm actually going to give that one to you. I think Showmaker did kind of bomb out. Yeah. [01:02:37] Speaker C: Wasn't impressive, honestly. [01:02:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Don't make this popular. In my solo queue, we had Yone, Aurora, Shyvana, Kante. I think me and Hawk win that one. I think it's. Yone and Kante were definitely the two that were played the most at Worlds here, although Aurora was banned a couple of times. Right. Yeah. [01:02:55] Speaker A: Mostly, yeah. [01:02:56] Speaker C: Aurora was relevant in the meta. [01:03:00] Speaker B: Okay. Shout out to Hawkeye Mongoose for getting the correct fastest Speed Run award for the airport. It was MDK, not TL or FlyQuest or Fanatic, which were the other kind of popular ones. I'm not going to take credit for png, which also technically didn't. Didn't they? No. They went out at the same time as mdk, I think. [01:03:19] Speaker A: Yes. Pain and MDK were the first two teams out. [01:03:22] Speaker B: Yep. All right. But that was cheating for sure. Eastern team with the worst show. And I put Weibo. Pickle put Weibo. Well, we were both fucking wrong. But dk. Pretty accurate. Kind of. Kind of. I mean, they did really well in the group stage, but then petered out come knockouts. Actually. Wait. Didn't. Did Weibo into the same time and knockouts. Wait, this is a tie. No. [01:03:47] Speaker A: Damon didn't even make knockouts. They get knocked. [01:03:50] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Who am I thinking of? [01:03:52] Speaker A: You're thinking of Gen G. [01:03:56] Speaker B: I am thinking of Genji. Yeah. Because Genji beat Damwon in their qualification. But then Damwon lost out, right? [01:04:03] Speaker A: Nope. [01:04:03] Speaker B: Is that how that works? Who they beat then? [01:04:05] Speaker A: Dam one beats me. Think. [01:04:08] Speaker B: Who did Gen G beat in there in their promotion match? [01:04:11] Speaker A: Gen G beats. [01:04:14] Speaker B: Oh, it was. It was Hanma Life. [01:04:16] Speaker D: Yep. [01:04:16] Speaker B: No, I. I'm just exceptionally high today. Okay. Never mind. You win. Hawk and Mongoose. DK did not make it out. Yeah, I'm just. [01:04:26] Speaker D: I'm just a predictor. [01:04:27] Speaker C: What can I say? [01:04:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Truly. Truly getting the Ben who has the biggest lane kingdom. I put Ben. I put Ben. It's in the name. I actually think that's pretty accurate. He got the finals. He was smashing everybody. Otherwise, it was Canyon, Mako, Chovy, big hole. Do you think Chovy put anybody in the bin? How confident were you in that one? [01:04:45] Speaker A: Not too. He was. He was good. But it wasn't Chovy. [01:04:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:51] Speaker A: Honestly, I think the right answer for this might be faker. [01:04:55] Speaker B: I think so. Maybe. Could be. Could be. And the last one that we'll do is the Legends Never Die. The breakout player of Worlds. I put Ben as well. I think to an extent, up until that finals, it was absolutely correct. He's. Yeah. He kind of carried a lot of the narrative for BLG up until the finals. Mizel. I heard his thoughts on kind of the finals hype trailer and that. He thought it was actually pretty well balanced and the stories were well represented. Ben still was a big part of that, but I think Ben was kind of the face of this team for a lot of it and did a really, really solid job. Hawk, you put Masu. I think Masu had a pretty good performance too. But do you. How confident were you that he was the breakout player of Worlds in your eyes? [01:05:40] Speaker C: I'm going to be honest. I saw a lot of people saying. [01:05:43] Speaker B: He'S like the next. Who's a. What's it? [01:05:45] Speaker C: I don't know, like, whatever. I think he really was a breakout player. I'm going to be honest. [01:05:52] Speaker D: Okay. [01:05:53] Speaker C: I think he had a very, very good performance at the world. [01:05:57] Speaker B: Stocks are definitely higher after Worlds as opposed to, like, look at Jan from last year. His stocks were lower after Worlds. So, like, for a rookie 80 carry to come in and perform, that's really good. [01:06:09] Speaker C: Yeah, 100%. [01:06:10] Speaker B: Cool. Cool. I don't even know who Gaia is. That mongoose put gala. [01:06:14] Speaker A: The 80k. [01:06:15] Speaker B: Oh, gala. That's Gala. That's not an eye. I'm too far away from my monitor. Wow, we're really falling apart here at the end, guys. [01:06:20] Speaker A: It's Masu. There's. There's no art. It's Masu. [01:06:24] Speaker B: Okay. All right. Bickle agrees on it. Mizzell, do you think so, or do you think there's a better breakout player from Worlds now that it's all wrapped? [01:06:32] Speaker D: No, I think it's fine. Yeah. Cool. [01:06:35] Speaker B: Shout out to Masu, everybody. And shout out gave hope to the West. Yes. Yes. And shout out to everybody who made Worlds happen. We don't talk about it that often, but the production team, Lec, I think, for the most part, did a really good job. I personally, I didn't watch a lot of the pre shows. I didn't notice that many egregious, like, technical errors. Were those happening and I just wasn't paying attention enough or. It felt like one of the smoothest worlds from a just broadcast. [01:07:03] Speaker C: I'm gonna be honest, the broadcast was not the best in terms of quality early on. [01:07:07] Speaker B: Okay, well, shit. [01:07:08] Speaker D: They definitely cleaned up once they went to France a little bit, though. I mean, there were still some big glitches in France, but they nailed it. Pretty. [01:07:18] Speaker C: There were some memes in London and by some, I mean, there were a lot of memes about LEC production. [01:07:23] Speaker B: Okay, well, yeah, well, they were in Berlin. [01:07:25] Speaker D: It was real rough. [01:07:27] Speaker B: All right, well, scratch that. Either way, shout out to people that at least put in the work to give us a broadcast because that is a lot of work that goes on behind that. Shout out to Medic as well. For a banger finals cast. I thought he Did a great job on Play by Play and delivered one of those finals calls. So brought the energy, brought the hype. And shout out to everybody on this podcast for covering all of Worlds together. That brings us to our off season announcement stuff. So like I said, we're going to have a couple of roster focused episodes, at least one big one for next week. But then after that I am in communications and talks with a couple of folks here on the NA side of things. We've had Patreon supporters, we've had people supporting us through the Merch store and I'm happy to at least give a pre announcement. We're working on official announcement stuff or at least I'm talking to some folks about locking it in finally. But we're going to be doing a scouting combine in the off season sponsored by the league rundown that has an actual prize pool for players in North America. I'm trying to figure out how to get it going for Europe as well. It might not be a this year thing just because I don't have that many connections over in EU to get something rolling on that side. So it might turn into an N A thing this year. Maybe next year would be EU or something because it'd be fun to make this a regular occurring thing. But the hope is that we can get some kind of just more eyes on up and coming players in North America. We have a lot of people on the cast and a lot of people in my network that focus on those players. So it's just kind of a natural combination. So your support of the podcast is now going to be going towards supporting North American League of Legends and developing players directly. So I'll have more announcements and more news on that in the coming weeks, but just wanted to give a quick little preview there because I've teased it a few times. So yeah, there we go. That is Worlds 2024, everybody. Thank you so much for listening along. Everybody at home. And Hawk. How many again? Blank. I'm not a math guy. How many stars should they give us? [01:09:32] Speaker D: Oh, you have one way to do this. [01:09:36] Speaker C: Wait. [01:09:37] Speaker B: Oh. Oh. [01:09:38] Speaker D: There's literally one way to do this. If you don't do it, you're messed up. [01:09:41] Speaker B: Thank you, Lennon. [01:09:41] Speaker C: You definitely saved how many. How many titles this faker have now? [01:09:46] Speaker B: Oh, shit. One, two, three, Five. Five. Five, I think. [01:09:51] Speaker C: Is that how many stars they should be? [01:09:52] Speaker B: 5 stars. [01:09:53] Speaker C: 1 for every 5 faker titles. [01:09:56] Speaker B: I like it. [01:09:57] Speaker C: I think they should now. [01:09:58] Speaker D: Want to know what your original idea was gonna be? [01:09:59] Speaker C: It was gonna be a lot more boring than that. [01:10:03] Speaker A: Well, stars on the T1 jersey. [01:10:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of them. How a star for every trophy that they're gonna have to add to faker skin because they have to add one now. They kind of jumped the shark a little bit. No, that's jump. [01:10:19] Speaker C: I'm proud of you. But not really the correct use of that, but, like, I'll take it. [01:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah, okay. You know what? Whatever. What? We'll cover vernacular later. Thank you. [01:10:27] Speaker D: Mostly, though, the gun with the shark. [01:10:29] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, Captain goes down with their shark. Speaking of, this episode's going downhill real fast. We're gonna get out of here. Thank you for listening along and supporting us, everybody. We love you and we'll see you next time. [01:10:42] Speaker D: Bye bye. [01:10:43] Speaker A: Peace. [01:10:45] Speaker B: Oh, yes. Daddy.