Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Gets hit Kimmy kids a little too far here. He's gonna have to try and get himself up. Living o Tillery and the rest of the shots of fire. Zion is just killing the next Zion can eat single handedly win the game by game by game by game by should be. Oh my God. Stupid marches through and manages to the table with Messiah tanking it up. I do not believe he just believe.
I cannot understand this game.
Unicorns of love. It wasn't a mutant. They Nexus.
Hello and welcome to episode 542 of the League Rundown. This is 2025 off season continued and the episode is lovingly entitled Raise a Cub for Auld Lang Syne. I am your host, Kangas, and I'm joined by two esteemed coasts. Up first returning we have Mr. Mazelpl.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: I thought you were speaking gibberish. And honestly, kind of worth, but hello, I'm really excited to be here.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: Auld Lang side, you know. You know. You've never heard that?
[00:01:32] Speaker B: No. Nope. Never heard it.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: Oh, it's. It' some language for like old times or something like that. But it's like a song. It's like the sh.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Old acquaintance Kangas. I never thought I'd be here.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: You don't know this song? All right, let us know at the discord if you know Old Lang Zion and which version you like the most. Mine's Michael Buble, but nice. I mean, it's not like a Christmas song really. It's more like a New Year song. But it's kind of clumped in there because it's, you know, around the same time. Anyway, that's enough lore on old Langs 9. We have also joining us with a fresh bird fact of the week. Hawk.
[00:02:14] Speaker C: I always forget about these. Dude, do you guys know that parrots and parakeets and those sorts of things can live for 50 years? That's a pet for life if you ever get one.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: I did not know that. And that is a pet for life. What? Okay, wait a minute. No, it's not. No, it's not. Because let's be honest, if you get bored of having a parrot, it's much easier to get rid of a parrot than like a dog, right? You just open the window. Open the window.
[00:02:39] Speaker C: That's crazy, bro.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: That is not.
[00:02:43] Speaker C: That's how you, like, ruin ecosystems.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: Look, I'm just saying, if. First off, this is why I would never.
[00:02:50] Speaker C: Josh just started laughing at that, by the way, in the hallway.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: I need everyone to know that I know that Josh likes birds. He and I have talked about this. Josh as well as Hawk's roommate, also known as Joshi. He's been a caster in the tier 2 scene as well. Ben on LCS as a guest caster. But he. He and I have talked about birds and he loves birds. And I was like, nah, dude. Because, like, they just make so much.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: Noise and they're so many people that have birds. And every time, like, I used to have, like, a really good friend of mine that had a parrot and oh, my God. I know every bird is different. It's like literally different personalities for every bird. But so many birds are just hard to handle and annoying. And it's like, what is it? Why is it worth it for this? What is the reason?
[00:03:36] Speaker A: I forgot that was your literal job before going into broadcast.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: Even before that, like, like having friends or people that just like, like residential birds, like, that was different because they're like, they. They're. They have to be there. But like, but like people that, like, own birds as pets, like, I don't know, man. The annoyance level is just so stress generating. It's crazy.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: And whenever they reach max capacity for what you can tolerate, you just open the window, say, you can't do that.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: You cannot not what you do. Anybody that absolutely crazy. Do not listen to this Minnesotan homeschooled guy telling you to release your exotic birds into the wild. That's why we have parrots in Alhambra.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: And it's awesome.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: We.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: We got peacocks or not peacocks. Wait, do we have. Yeah, yeah, peacocks.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: Peacocks in Pasadena.
[00:04:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, Peacocks in Pasadena. That's the name of my cover band, actually.
But enough about my moonlighting. Let's get in the episode proper, guys, because there's stuff to talk about, but not that much to talk about. There's some news that have dropped, so we're gonna cover that and then we're gonna just recap the year and kind of put a bow on things for 2024. Heads up for everybody listening. This will be the last episode of the year. I will be traveling back home to my home state of Minnesota and will be away from recording equipment. And just because it's a holidays figure, give everybody some time off. We're gonna be taking a hiatus over the next two weeks and be back fresh on January 7th. Should be the first day that we're back to fully record. So like the 8th or the 9th. January 8th or 9th is when we'll be back in your ears with our beginning of the recaps for the Full kind of roster, expectations, power rankings, all that normal stuff that goes at the beginning of a season. We're going to be starting with LEC most likely because news dropped this week. We have the schedule. We actually know when LEC is starting now it's starting January 18th with Team Heretics versus Rogue kicking things off and G2 versus KC to end the day.
G2. KC is kind of a bit of a rivalry now at this point just in terms of, like, the two biggest brands that exist. I know Fnatic is still up there in terms of, like, competitiveness, but Casey, from the fandom perspective, definitely has more of that brand power.
So, yeah, mark your calendars. We'll be watching that. So we'll be able to kind of give you a preview of that once we are back in the new year.
Other news that dropped also in the LEC emote sales were announced. Now, I didn't see any hard numbers given for, like, actual, hey, this is how many of each emote was sold, but there was a ranking that was listed that just gave, like, the teams in order. Does anybody want to guess? I don't know if anyone's cheating and looking at the sheet right now.
You already looked at it, Hawk. Have you looked at it? I. I. Damn it, guys.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: I'm gonna read it.
[00:06:43] Speaker A: I know. Yeah. I shouldn't be mad. Well, then we're not gonna play a game. You listeners think in your head who had the most emote sales. If you're thinking that the answer was Casey, then you're right.
Is anybody surprised by that?
[00:07:02] Speaker B: No. They have a giant fan base. I don't think I'm surprised at all.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Would you be surprised that according to the report, which was published by Sheep Esports, that their total sales were over the combined total of the other nine teams? Emote sales.
[00:07:20] Speaker B: I believe it. The French friends are crazy.
[00:07:22] Speaker C: That's crazy, dude.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: More than that. That's insane.
[00:07:25] Speaker C: Like, more. More than G2, Fnatic. All them guys combined is insane.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: If you told me it was more than, like.
[00:07:32] Speaker C: If you told me it was more than, like, the other bottom five teams combined, I definitely would have believed you, but that's. Yeah, that's nuts.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: Yeah. No, the. The Casey fans showed up. And here's another weird thing. Is that the order. I'll just list it out. Casey, G2 were the top two. No surprise. I think that that. That's pretty expected.
BDS team, Heretics, and then Fnatic fanatics.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: Remember what their emotes looked like, honestly.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: Right. So. So that's the Thing if we actually think about the emotes, I actually have them here. Carmine Core was the. The four surrenders. Yeses.
[00:08:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:08] Speaker A: And then one person not voting G2 is just like the poro. Pointing, crying, laughing, wearing the G2 helmet. BDS.
It was the fishing hook one.
[00:08:20] Speaker B: Yep, of course.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: So I think that's partly why BDS once sold so well. Team Heretics is just like a duck with sunglasses. That's like giving a sh sign. So that one's weird. Fnatic. It's like a poro given the. The love thumb finger thing wearing a Fanatic hat. But. So I'm surprised. Fanatics below Team Heretics bds just because everyone bought that emote because it was like a flame. That would make sense. G2 Carmine because they're so popular. But the team Heretics being above fanatic was surprising to see. And then the rest of the list just being gx, Rogue mdk, Vitality, SK at the bottom now, teams reportedly overall were disappointed with the sales.
I doubt that is including kc. It seemed like that was just saying, like the general sentiment was that they were disappointed with overall sales. If kc, the number to be believed is correct. I'm just quoting directly from the Sheep Esports report here, so I, I take this with a giant grain of salt. It is so. So here we go. The data highlights Carmine Core's outstanding performance as their emote sales vastly surpassed the combined total of all other nine teams combined, reaching a six digit result.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: Oh wow.
[00:09:41] Speaker C: Damn. What the fuck?
[00:09:43] Speaker A: Now I don't know that. I highly doubt that means six digit emote sales. If anything, maybe it's six digit spent on the emotes, but that's still like 100,000.
Six digits is a lot of digits. That.
[00:10:02] Speaker C: That's digits.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: That's digits right there. So if that is true, according to the report, for every €2 spent, a team gets 0.7 Euros. Basically that's kind of how the math breaks out. So if, if that's correct, that KC walked away with the shiny penny from their emotes, but the other teams understandably if, if Casey reached that much, but they were more than everyone else combined. Yeah, I, I'm gonna guess that the other teams were unhappy with their sales, but yeah, that's kind of cool.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: It's kind of cool.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: I remember that we went through and like gave our. Our favorite emotes. Does anybody remember their favorite emote from earlier in the year?
Hawk, do you remember yours? The.
[00:10:45] Speaker C: I mean, dude, the best one still was the fucking one that they got rid of which was Sniper Tiny Dick one.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: Yeah, that one was really good.
[00:10:54] Speaker C: That one was by far the best. I'm so mad that they changed it.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: I still have a gif of him doing that to the camera. That flew on broadcast.
[00:11:02] Speaker B: That was awesome.
[00:11:02] Speaker C: Yeah, that was incredible.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: Bless Sniper. Bless Sniper. All right, well, outside of LEC stuff, there's also a lot of information going on over in the LPL region, notably the Demacia Cup. And who better to tell us about what's going on at the Demacia cup than the man who's been broadcasting it himself? Mazel. So take it away. How is Demacia cup doing? We're in day three or day four.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: Right now going into day three. Okay.
It has been group stage, where we have four groups.
They're single or. Yeah, single. Round robin.
And the. There's only one winner in each group. And that winner goes on to face one of the top four teams from LPL Summer in the quarterfinals. And so it's ruthless out here. We're already in day number three going into day number three. But on day one, JDG was eliminated. ThunderTalk Gaming is the ones that made it through JDG. Their roster now is Allah Shun. Scout pays and missing. So one of one of the would be super teams.
[00:12:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: Obviously taking already an early bow from. From Demacia Cup. So that was. That was kind of crazy. That was kind of fun.
Then we had.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: Can you give any more insight? Was it like a bad meta read? Were they just out?
[00:12:27] Speaker B: No, they were getting outplayed. Yeah. There was just a lot of mistakes and stuff. It's very often a lot of teams, like, just trying to get used to playing together and whatnot. So sometimes you get really bad, bad moments.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: Have any of these players played together in the past or is this like a completely.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: No, no, they're completely new. Wow.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. All right, Fair enough.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: Then we had Group A last night where EDG handled business, went 3.0in the group and made it out. EDG have a weird amalgamation of some players and keeping Wink from last year. But they have zdz, Shaohao, angel and awesome, which has been. I didn't expect as much out of them. They actually looked really good. They beat out LGD and FPX and then the BLG LDL team to claim Group A. They're gonna go face up against Weibo next. The group C winner, Thunder Talker is gonna be facing against lng.
But then tonight we have the IG super team debut in Demacia Cup. Which is going to be a lot of fun. If you haven't heard it about that roster yet, it is the shy JJ Rookie gala and Mako. So some of the biggest stars. I think the LPL is a couple world champions coming together. It's also the shine rookie coming back to the place they earned the star for the LPL and it mental offer and they had like a whole interview about it and how much it means to rookie to be coming back, blah, blah, blah. So that's going to be a lot of fun. That's going to be a lot of hype.
And then we have the next group, which is going to be group B. That has anyone's legend, OMG and Ultra prime in it. Maybe not as many big eyes on that one for sure. But I want to give a little context to what the teams you should be looking out for at least going into next year. I already talked about IG, already talked about JDG. Top Esports has put together a version of JDG. I guess they got 369. They've got Kanavi. They've got Nio, which is in place for subbing for Kanavi if needed. We've got Cream, Jackie Love and Crisp, which is going to be a lot of fun. And then Weibo have put together themselves another version of their super team with Breathe, Tien, Shaohu, Light and Hung. So they took Hung from lng.
So some interesting pieces and we'll get to see a lot of that in the quarterfinals. And all starts at midnight Pacific.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: And if people want to watch, where can they watch along with the action?
[00:14:52] Speaker B: You can go to Twitch TV, LPL English or the YouTube, which is also LPL English.
[00:15:01] Speaker A: Sweet. And I know that it's gonna. It's kind of like a crew that's putting this together. Want to shout out everybody putting together the demac upstream.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: There's a lot of people, but the core crew that we put the project together was me, Kelsey Moser, ALC Battery and Kai.
But we've got a big team now. We've got Camcom behind on production. We've got a guy named Brad behind on the production. We're gonna have some awesome casters trying out for Demacia cup, and we're using this as a cool little time to try some people out, see if it. It fits for their schedules and stuff, and then maybe bring them on for 2025.
[00:15:39] Speaker A: Sweet. That's awesome. Well, great that you're doing that. Mazel cool that the team's coming together to make it all happen. And if you want to support it again, check out. Like he said, LPL English, right? Was that. Yeah, LPL English. There you go.
Cool. Well, that is what's going on over in the lpl. You mentioned some of the cool rosters in the lpl. There's only one roster in LEC that was officially announced this past week, and that is sk.
That's right. The team that had the lowest sales of all the in game emotes and their roster. Get ready, everybody. Because it's a banger. Said, I don't think anybody except for maybe the person making the announcement video because the announcement video was actually really cool. In the top lane, JNX in the jungle, YZMA in the mid lane, rkr. Now, I haven't looked up this player yet, so, Hawk, I'm gonna put on you. Can you look up RKR for me on Leaguepedia and let me know what they've been in?
[00:16:44] Speaker B: First thing that comes up, bot laner.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: Rahel and support Loopy coming in here. All right, Hawk, did I set you up with enough time? Were you able to find it?
[00:16:55] Speaker C: Yeah. So RKR is just Rika renamed.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: Oh, that's just.
[00:16:59] Speaker C: So the guy that played on Mad lions back in 21 after getting promoted out of, I want to say, prime league.
And everybody really hated, to be honest. Yeah, yeah, I. I always thought, like, look, okay, Rikker was not great on his time on Mad Lions. And, you know, it's coming off of, I want to say, a year where they were able to win a split, right, because they had Elioja and Humanoid. And that was kind of the year where, like, them and Rogue were the top dogs. And then Rika comes in and did not really carry the torch. But I'm going to be honest, like, I didn't think he was that bad either. It felt like he always, even to this day, gets an unnecessary amount of the blame for whatever that roster was. So, you know, hopefully with a little bit more time to cook, he can be okay. Um, but yeah, I mean that those are the expectations for this player is. It's just Rikur.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: So.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: Okay, well, there we go. So it is a player we've seen before. I didn't recognize just by the rkr. We'll see a bit of a rebrand loopy as well. The support coming in was a Korean challenger player who I most recently played for Isiris.
Did you actually see any loopy gameplay then? Hawk, I know that you're doing cb, lol, but do you ever, like, check out the LOLA stuff?
[00:18:24] Speaker C: No, I'M going to be completely honest. I never did. So I am not qualified to comment on how good Loopy is. I can comment on the rest of this roster, though, because I was responsible for them for the. The year.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: Please do.
[00:18:35] Speaker C: Which is. I think I'm not inspired by this, to be honest. If I'm an SK fan, I think Rahel had a fantastic, what was it? Summer split when he came in.
Easma and Gen X are okay, but also, like, jnx has been playing in the LEC for a while now. You know, kind of on and off. I want to say. I. I spent like three years at this point, and he's always just been kind of all right. And I think isma decent young player, but not amazing either. And then with Rikker and Loopy being the pickups, I'm not. I'm not super excited about this one, to be honest.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: It.
[00:19:19] Speaker C: It sounds like a top 10 roster. I. I think they, like, kind of got hot in the summer split and managed to have, like, a great regular season. Right. And they were kind of in the conversation in the back half of the LEC year for a little while. But this does not scream upgrade to me. And they do not feel like a championship contender.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that that's the general sentiment I've seen online at least, is like, this is a roster that could push for playoffs, could end 10th.
[00:19:48] Speaker C: Like, yeah, like, I think they could make playoffs. Like, they feel like, honestly, the shopify rebellion of lec, where, like, it's not bad and, like, they could be good. But, like, also, I think the expectation is that they're not necessarily a championship contender.
[00:20:06] Speaker A: Yeah. All right.
Well, that was a roster announcement over in the lec, but there was other events happening in the European region this past week, notably the Red Bull Tournament. What was it called again? I'm actually blanking.
[00:20:22] Speaker C: League of Their Own.
[00:20:23] Speaker A: There we go. The league.
[00:20:24] Speaker C: Tom Hanks wasn't there. Unfortunately, though.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: Tom. Thomas Hanks. I don't know why I said Thomas.
[00:20:31] Speaker C: Why did you say Thomas?
[00:20:33] Speaker A: Does anybody call Tom Hanks Thomas? Maybe his mom.
[00:20:37] Speaker C: Probably his mom when she's mad at him.
[00:20:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Thomas Hank. Hankus. Something like that. All right. Anyway, it was basically a big show match tournament. If you're kind of unaware of what was going on, none of it really mattered. A lot of it was basically for fun, but it was a lot of teams and a lot of brands saying, hey, we want airtime playing against T1 and T1, like, okay, we're going to destroy all of you. And they were like, okay, but what if you all have to off roll? And T1's like, okay, fine, I'll do it, yo.
[00:21:10] Speaker C: But then they brought in Reckless. It went crazy.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: They did. Yes. This is a. Yeah. You know, Ben, were you watching any of it? I only got to catch the lust for Tony's game. I haven't watched the Reckless games yet.
[00:21:20] Speaker C: I. I've, like, seen clips and I read Reddit comments like, yeah, and everyone was glazing Reckless. Super. Because that was, like, the one game that they unrolled, by the way, against. I don't even remember who they were.
[00:21:30] Speaker A: It was G2 and KC. So they waited for, like, the European teams. So it was no need Orga. It was Gentle Mates and then lost Rotone. So basically just like other orgs that just had, like, popular streamers or like, other players from. From different regions playing against T1. And then G2 and Casey were there as well.
The big one was the Los Ratones game. So that one I did watch. Baus, the top laner, who's known for being popularizing in teen Scion and coining the phrase good death. He died a lot of times playing Scion. Went fully felony. Played against Tebow Top Lane and Lazar Torres still won that game, beating T1 off roll. But you said hog T1 brings in reckless, and I think they just played their actual roles.
[00:22:25] Speaker C: They played like a real game. Yeah.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: Yeah. So they just played T1 with reckless support, and they just crushed G2 and KC. I have to go back and watch those games and actually see if there was any competition from G2 and KC. But from what I've heard and what it seemed like online, the T1 was just like, kind of popping off. So that was cool that Red Bull treated us to that event. At least go check it out if you haven't yet.
All right. Yeah. Oh, but I, I. The reason I bring that up is because that was the first time we actually got to see Casey's new AD carry.
So Kalist has been very hyped, very young player coming in, and we finally got to see some gameplay of him with the rest of the roster. And Kalist, I think, played pretty well. I think that for a player that had 15, 30,000 people screaming his name at 18 years old, performed admirably given the pressure of the situation. So I'm excited for Kalist going forward. Yeah. Also.
[00:23:30] Speaker C: Oh, sorry. All I was gonna say is general sentiment that I saw is that he's living up to the hype. You know, like, he. He earned some of the Some of his stars in that game, obviously, you know, it's just a show match and everything, but people were pretty fan sentiment, was excited about him, which is awesome to see for a young player.
[00:23:46] Speaker A: You know, he did lose his 1v1, unfortunately. 31 over Saan beat Kist. Damn.
[00:23:57] Speaker C: Losing a 1v1 to Saan's tough.
[00:23:59] Speaker A: I know, right?
But hey, if you're gonna lose to anybody, I guess kind of your teammate. Although not like really, but like was on the team anyway, still fan sake. And hopefully he's gonna stick around the scene. But mazel. This is something you might be happy about. Good news for French players. In 1v1s. They swept. A French player did not lose a 1v1 Kalist, as he is French, but he lost to Sagan, who's also French. So.
[00:24:28] Speaker B: Okay, well, there you go.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: It evens out 100 win rate for the French. Do you. What do French people say when they're celebrating something like that? Because in America, be like, let's go. Or like, hell, yeah.
Yeah, There we go. Did I get that right?
[00:24:44] Speaker B: You did it justice.
[00:24:45] Speaker A: Perfect. Perfect. All right. Shout out to Doran and Caps, who both lost to players whose names I don't even recognize. So damn.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: Ouch.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: Hey. But I see a French flag next to their name. That's what's called them out.
[00:25:00] Speaker C: Call them out.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: That's all that matters.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: I mean. Okay. Shout out to all the rates and ticky.
[00:25:06] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:25:06] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't recognize those names. There we go.
[00:25:08] Speaker A: That's what I'm saying. Tyche.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying.
[00:25:11] Speaker A: That's what I'm saying.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: He's always saying.
[00:25:12] Speaker A: I've. I've been saying. Also one other thing. Fun happened this weekend. Some of you might have been there to witness it. We hosted our own league rundown tournament called the Snowdown Showdown. We did that Saturday and Sunday. It was a lot of fun. Thank you to our Patreon supporters who helped fund that endeavor. And shout out to Quackers Entourage, AKA Blue Otter, who actually ended up taking the whole thing. The Blue Otter roster from the 2024 just kind of got the team together and said, let's run it. Have some fun at the tournament.
They didn't like fully drop on stream that they were running back the roster next year. I was trying to get it out of them, but then they announced today on socials. Yep, we're running it back. I was like, come on. That's like two days later. You could have just said it on the stream, guys.
[00:25:58] Speaker C: But they had to deny us the content.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: Yeah. Cool to see that the Blue Otter League is running back their NACL roster for next year and shout out to them for winning the the tournament that we threw. So if you were there watching the tournament, thank you for the support. And also shout out again to Corsair. Corsair reached out because somebody I know whose roommate works for them was talking about us throwing this tournament and then the guy was like, oh, wait, we actually have like a little end of the year budget. We could probably throw some like extra stuff in for the prize pool if they want to plug us. And I was like, hell yeah. So we got to give the players extra keyboards. We had to give away some headsets during the stream. It was really cool. So shout out course.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
But that does it for news for this past week. That means that if you want to join in on the action, if we missed anything that you wish we had talked about, or if you just want to give your thoughts on anything, which was your favorite emote in whom, who do you think should have sold the most? Let us know in the community. Discord. You can find a link in the description wherever you are listening along. And also if you are able to and willing to, you can help support the podcast through our Patreon. You can also find the link below or through our shop league rundown. Shop.fourthwall.com it was joked about on the cast and I think I'm actually going to go through with it. We're going to send mouse pads to the winning players also.
[00:27:20] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:27:21] Speaker A: Just because I think that would be hilarious to be like, yeah, we paid them in mouse pads. Yeah. Never say the league rundown didn't content, you know. Yeah.
All right. And with that said, that's it. I mean, it's it. It's a year wrapped. We knew it was gonna be a very short episode. I know that you might be shocked to hear, but there's not much to talk about outside of that. Sometimes we would do like game shows and such, but it's been tough to get everybody together at the same time for enough of us to really do a game show. Last week, shout out to Leo the stats guy for coming on. Yeah, that was awesome. I think that episode is going to be posted late because Ian was moving, so that one actually might come out very shortly before this one. But you know what? There you go. You get two in one week. This one's a little shorter, but to close things out for 2024, we're gonna go back and relook at the year, we're gonna start off with something simple. Our favorite LCS/LEC moments. Just favorite moments. It could be a broadcast moment, could be an in person moment. Just our personal favorite moments. Mizel, do you have one? You want to start us off here?
[00:28:29] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: I.
[00:28:35] Speaker B: It's so hard. Honestly, one of my favorite moments was Masu getting recognized. Like, I don't know if it's one singular moment, but like the collective of the Fly Quest come up at summer and then also like the world's performance. Like, that just reminded me how much being a fan of this can be, can be awesome and feel good. And it just brought me back to so many other times we've seen players come up through the system that we've gotten to like, follow. And it's just a cool, cool, cool moment. I don't know, it's emotional. It's really awesome.
[00:29:11] Speaker A: I like that. It's not just one moment. It's like a continuation of moments. Because his year started with a drive episode made about him.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:29:20] Speaker A: And then he has a pretty good spring split, a decent enough MSI showing, even though everything was kind of disappointing overall. And then Summer pops off, wins, has the world's video made about him.
Oh, that was great.
I like that. Hawk, what was your favorite Masu moment like? Like, do you think that there was one that stood out to you?
[00:29:45] Speaker C: Oh, man, it's so hard because my favorite Masu moment. Okay, this is going to be a really strange answer, but I think it was in Spring split when Masu had a. He almost had the craziest high rate highlight reel play ever where he was 1v4 kiting people as ash and like.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: Oh, was Ash behind the Baron Pit? Yeah, he, like, I remember that won the fight almost.
[00:30:16] Speaker C: Right. And I. I thought that was so cool because that was sort of like, like it was like a flash of what could have been. And then he finally, you know, he had those plays against like Gen G and got the recognition he deserved and all that amazing stuff.
[00:30:32] Speaker A: No, I remember that play too, because I remember in the moment thinking like, hold your ground, Masu. Hold your ground. And he did like, he didn't try and flash away or run. He's just like, I'm in a 1v4 and I almost got to kill them all. And he did. He goes down. But like, the fact he was willing to go for that was so exciting. Yeah.
[00:30:50] Speaker C: Because like, the game was cooked and so. So that was my favorite Masu moment. It was sort of like a glimpse of the future.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: I Like that. I like that a lot. Cool. All right, well, Hawk, if Masu as a entity is Mizzell's favorite moment from 2024 in the league ecosystem, what was yours?
[00:31:09] Speaker C: I think for me, it has to be. Again, it's hard to pick one specific moment from the whole year, but I guess, like, my favorite thing about this year was how much I feel like Team Liquid and FlyQuest did to sort of challenge each other and make each other better over the course of the year. Like, it really felt like our region actually improved, which is pretty cool, you.
[00:31:31] Speaker A: Know, So I would say that a new rivalry. I feel like we haven't had a proper rivalry in the LCS for a while. Right. Like, CLG, TSM is the old one. Then it was kind of C9TSM, then it was C9TL, and then I'm hoping.
[00:31:51] Speaker C: It is able to continue, especially because, like, the rosters are gonna look very similar, right?
[00:31:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. I mean, they're gonna look the exact same going into next year, presumably. We don't. We don't 100 know on Bwipo, I guess. I don't think FlyQuest has, like, made a firm statement. The rumor is maybe Bipo still player coach, but it's looking like it's just Bipo top lane still. So. Yeah, I don't know who they'd bring in at this point.
I think that's a cool nod. I like it. All right, well, I'm gonna go for one that is near and dear to my heart, because it was something that came up early in the year for. For those that don't remember, Ben, I don't think you were on the podcast during this Mizel. You might have been. I'm not sure. But we always do kind of pre split predictions way too early, predictions of what we think could happen during the split. And then we come back at the end of the split, we take a look and be like, was anybody right? Did anybody actually get theirs right? And I said that Casey fans would be the cause of more than one case of police intervention at the LEC studio. And apparently, according to rumors, it happened at least once that Casey fans got in trouble with the law at the Berlin studio. And that just brings a tear to my eye.
You know, I'm so happy that it actually happened. All I knew about them was they were rowdy fans. And I was like, something's gonna go down. Someone's getting in trouble.
[00:33:27] Speaker B: It's gonna be hilarious.
[00:33:29] Speaker A: That alongside, I would even say Los Ferdones, Kadrill Streamer team. I know this is like LEC tangential, like it's not exactly lec, but the fact that his co streams are getting more views than the world's broadcast than LEC broadcast and now he's actually, it seems like trying to use that viewership to fuel the ecosystem.
It seems like a big instance of a streamer giving back. It's very like disguised making or disguised Toast making the disguised team, but at a much bigger scale because Cage was a much larger streamer than disguise Toast. Love toast, but in terms of just like viewership and impact. So I think that I'm very excited for Cajole and Lortones are going to do. I know that was like at the very tail end of the year, but very excited for what they're able to do going into 2025 just to like bring fresh life to League of Legends again.
[00:34:28] Speaker B: Little. Little shout out that maybe not many people will know. And honestly, I'm pretty sure it was a one and done. But the America's Challengers tournament was so cool.
It was so awesome. And like, honestly I was so proud of our regions for coming together for like a bigger tournament like that. It was so cool. And I'm like 99% sure it's not gonna exist next year, but it was really cool.
[00:34:54] Speaker A: Yeah, it's expected that next year that tournament is just going to be the promotion tournament instead, which is a bummer because we had one academy, a legitimate Academy World. I mean, I know it's only America's regions, but still a fair. A semi legitimate Academy Worlds and yeah. And Brazil won like NA didn't even take it. That was the coolest thing. I like that. That was a good shout. That was a very fun tournament.
Looking back on that one, man, we were so confident in our teams going in.
Oh, lordy. I mean that even sparked rumors that like some of those Brazilian teams would or players would be picked up by teams like Cloud9. I remember that one going around being like, ooh, is I forget the name of the ad? Carry on. The Brazilian Marvin 1. Marvin. I remember that being a rumor.
[00:35:43] Speaker C: Being like, dude.
[00:35:46] Speaker A: Yep.
So I mean, who knows those players are still going to be competing and on the come up. So maybe we see some of them make it over here because of the kind of expanded import rule that happened.
Did. Did anybody want to include that? I know that one's more contentious. Did you want to include the announcement of the LTA thoughts on it?
[00:36:10] Speaker B: I didn't like it, so I don't know.
[00:36:12] Speaker A: Okay. All right. That Wouldn't be a highlight then. What if instead the final LCS finals. I think that deserves a mention.
[00:36:21] Speaker B: Yeah, it was pretty cool.
[00:36:23] Speaker A: The Winions Minions ended the last LCS finals.
[00:36:28] Speaker B: It's just so fitting.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: It's insane. Like, I don't know if I could come up with a better script.
[00:36:35] Speaker B: The.
[00:36:35] Speaker C: The casters reaction to that was probably my favorite part because they were so flabbergasted.
[00:36:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Like.
[00:36:44] Speaker C: Like, if you just listen to his ale, he's like, there's no way this is how it goes. And I was sitting there. I was sitting next to Slayer, you know, good, good friend.
[00:36:55] Speaker A: Another play by playcaster.
[00:36:57] Speaker C: Yeah. And he was like, he. I was just screaming. I'm like, oh, my God, no, it's over. It's over. Like the Minions are going to do it. I. I saw it coming. It was like watching a car crash in slow motion, man.
[00:37:08] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:37:09] Speaker A: Still so sad. I was not able to be there live, but I was watching it. I was at Yu Gi. Oh, Worlds. I was up in Seattle, Washington, in the bathroom of the green room on my phone.
[00:37:21] Speaker C: Oh, my gosh.
[00:37:23] Speaker A: Watching LCS vitals going, what Minions back door. Oh, that was crazy. Good times. Incredible good times.
All right, well, I think it was a great year of great moments, great memories across the board.
But also I want to give us time as a cast because we have a unique combination here. The cast is used to just be mostly fans in the industry. Now it's a lot of us are working in the industry.
So I wanted to give a chance to reflect what. What are some of our own personal achievements and accomplishments that we're proud of from 2024. Hog, I'm going to start with you because you got a lot that you did this year. Like, if I was thinking back of like all the different projects you were on, programs that you did, things you ran, but what are some of the ones that stand out? Or maybe an individual one that you the most proud of?
[00:38:17] Speaker C: I mean, my. My favorite personal achievement. Despite everything I was able to do. And like, I had a lot of milestones this year, I think.
You know, like, first NaCl cast and stuff like that was super cool.
Raising over $10,000 to do a paid show for the 2024 seal coverage and no company would do it, I was that. That was an extremely cool moment for me. If anyone listening to this podcast was in any way involved with it or gave their money to it, I kind of took that as, you know, not only are people investing in CeeLo and they're making a statement that this is something that they value and want to see. I truly took that as, you know, the community investing in me and Grapes, my broadcast partner, and kind of the work that we do and believing in that. And so that was, without a doubt the most amazing thing I got to do this year, because I think I got to prove a lot for what I'm personally capable of. I think I got to prove a lot about what CeeLo's capable of. And I mean truly like it.
[00:39:21] Speaker A: The.
[00:39:21] Speaker C: The community reaction to all of it was. Was really special. So a lot of great things this year, but I think that's number one for me.
[00:39:29] Speaker A: I think that's a great number one to have for anybody who was unaware. Riot kind of in the final hour dropped that. Oh, yeah, there's. There's no sea level finals. I think it was kind of.
[00:39:42] Speaker C: Or it was only. It was only CeeLo finals. There was only a broadcast for literally the final game. None of the other.
[00:39:48] Speaker A: It wasn to be live. Yeah. CeeLo finals wouldn't be live in the studio like it had been the last couple of years. It wouldn't even be like the top. I think it was like, top eight, then it went to top four, and now it's only the finals. The top two teams in Boise. Freaking Boise, Idaho is where the finals are going to be. Out of the. The university studio that they had there.
And because the rest of the games weren't going to be covered in any capacity, Hawk stepped up with another caster Grapes, and they raised a bunch of community funds and put together a pretty banger show covering a bunch of the games. Were you able to cover all of them or just the majority?
[00:40:26] Speaker C: We covered every game from top 16 up through losers finals. So obviously we didn't do the grand finals because that was live in Boise. And then we unfortunately did not raise enough money quickly enough to do top 32. We would have needed, like, over 13 for that. But that was so. But we still did, like, the vast majority of the tournament, right?
[00:40:43] Speaker A: Okay, that's still awesome.
[00:40:45] Speaker C: So, yeah, we were still very proud. All of the best of fives, all the double elimination.
[00:40:50] Speaker A: That is sick. So shout out to Hawk for. For doing that. I know that was huge in, like, the tier 2 community. Everyone knew about it, but I don't know how much that made it out to, like, tier one fans, but like you said. Yeah. If any of the listeners in this pod were part of that, shout out to them.
Mizel, what about you? Personal accomplishments, achievements you're proud of from 2024?
[00:41:13] Speaker B: Well, 2024 ended kind of shit, but I was very proud to probably have the best cast of my career in my last regional cast, the last cast of LPL English ever. I guess it felt really good. I had some really good conversations after that. Obviously those conversations didn't mean much, but it felt really good in the moment. Got to do coverage on NACL finals as well as cast the first and only America's Challengers finals, which is pretty cool. There's a trend. I don't know, don't let Bazal cast.
[00:41:52] Speaker A: Your finals because it's fairly.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: Because then league just ends. Yep. Great.
No, I was pretty proud of what I was able to do as a. As a caster in terms of, like my growth and stuff in the last year. And it was a lot of fun to kind of be involved with the community and stuff like that.
[00:42:11] Speaker A: That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, you. You also casted an LPL finals in spring.
[00:42:17] Speaker B: In spring, yeah.
[00:42:18] Speaker A: You did last year, summer into this year's spring, and then Munchables did this year, summer. Right. So, yeah, you're getting multiple international or like flights out to other countries to go to Ireland.
[00:42:31] Speaker B: It was cool.
[00:42:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I want to go to Ireland so bad, man. You brought me a leaf back. You brought. I still have that four leaf, or not four leaf clover, but I have a clover from you in an envelope here. So.
[00:42:43] Speaker B: Cool.
[00:42:43] Speaker A: Cool. I like that a lot.
That's a good question. I think for me it was awesome getting to cast my first NACL finals ever. Actually, I had never casted NACL finals. I casted Academy finals one time back in 2021 summer. But then it, you know, all rebranded and ever since we got like kind of the core team together and started doing live finals, I never actually casted any. So I got to cast finals for that, which was really fun.
I got to guest on LCS twice and I got to do a lot of content the second time. That was probably my personal highlight was my second appearance on LCS in summer. Getting to do like games with the. The desk, beyond the desk with them early and actually like kind of running a whole like five minute segment with them, doing a lot of the interviews and stuff. That was a lot of fun. And then also just defining more of a casting style. I really leaned into a different style than what I had kind of developed originally and trying to approach it with more humor and less just pure hype than I had before. Because when you're a broadcaster, I'm sure that the two of you have heard this in the past, you're oftentimes compared to other professional casters when you're on the come up and everyone would always just be like, oh, your budget flowers. Oh your budget flowers. Like, I heard budget flowers so many times in my early years of my career that I feel like finally I'm at least establishing a style that is more unique and more my own. So I'm happy about that.
So there we go.
Not as fancy as, you know, flying to Ireland or raising $10,000, but there you.
And also shout out to everybody listening along. Hope you had memorable achievements and moments in 2024 that you're happy about, that you're proud of. And if not, you got two weeks to get them in. Come on, real quick. Just go, go, go. Or set some fun ones for 2025 because that's what's coming up ahead in the future. We have a whole new era of League of Legends Esports as the LCS is retired. We are now the LTA north and the LTA south and we'll be bringing you all the coverage of what that looks like next year alongside the lec, just like usual. Thank you so much everybody for tuning in for another year of the podcast. I know it's been crazy with Duffy stepping away from the podcast, me stepping in as the the head host, bringing on many casters. Shout out to Hawk and Mazel for joining us. Shout out rmc, who's been on a bunch. Leo, who's been on a bunch. Manny, who had been on. We had a lot of Charlie from Immortals. You know, so many cool guests that we got to have on this year as well.
But most importantly, everybody just remember this. We love you and we'll see you next time.
[00:45:46] Speaker B: Bye bye. See you in 2025. Woo.
[00:45:51] Speaker A: Oh yes, Daddy. One last time. You know, one for the year.
SA Sat.
