League Rundown - Episode 591: League of Visa Issues

[00:00:12] Speaker A: Gets hit. [00:00:12] Speaker B: Kimmy kids a little too far here. He's gonna have to try and get himself out. Let me go. Tillery and the rest of the shots of fire. Zion is just killing the next. Zion can eat it single handedly win the game by game by game by game by should be. Oh my God. Stupid. Passes through and manages to the table with Messiah tanking it up. I do not believe he just believe. [00:00:42] Speaker C: I cannot understand this game. [00:00:46] Speaker B: Unicorns of love. It wasn't a mutant. The Nexus. [00:01:03] Speaker C: Foreign. [00:01:07] Speaker B: Welcome to episode 591 of the League Rundown. This is your 2026 LCS primer and LEC week one preview. This episode is lovingly entitled League of Visa Issues. I'm your host Kangas and I am joined by four esteemed co hosts. We got basically a full house today. Up first, fresh out of the can, it's Badger. [00:01:30] Speaker D: Love how LCS has been advertising the stuff like draw shows and you know, everything going on. I genuinely. I'm on the Leaguepedia page right now. I thought the game started this weekend. [00:01:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:01:47] Speaker D: Cool. I can watch LCS on Saturday and then it's. Just kidding. You have to wait another week. [00:01:51] Speaker B: Well, hey, you can watch LEC's and so you know, all the best of ones. All the best of ones here in your future. Also joining us on this episode, we got Biggle. [00:02:02] Speaker E: I think these past few weeks have just erased the league off season from my mind because I'm looking at some of these rosters, I'm like, wait, AAR is back. [00:02:10] Speaker D: I did that last week when we did lec. I'm not going to lie. [00:02:14] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's. [00:02:16] Speaker C: It. [00:02:16] Speaker B: There's a lot of changes. We'll talk about it more once we get into it. But in total I want to say there were 23 roster swaps. That's including Sentinels, which is five new players. So it's kind of cheating but like still that's. That's a lot. That's over half the league moved around. Also to talk about it, we have Mr. Mizelpl. [00:02:34] Speaker C: Hello. Yes. If you are starred for League of Legends and don't want to wait for LEC and lcs. LPL is coming to a stream near you very soon. [00:02:43] Speaker B: Hell yeah. [00:02:44] Speaker C: The fact that there's like a. Is it two weeks difference? Because LCS starts on the 25th. [00:02:49] Speaker B: Yeah. So essentially 24. [00:02:51] Speaker C: That's a freaking two week difference of start time. Ridiculous. [00:02:55] Speaker D: The LPL games are so much more exciting today than the LCK games. Holy hell. [00:02:59] Speaker C: Yeah they are. [00:03:00] Speaker D: Let's Go roller coaster versus the SN Poopers. [00:03:04] Speaker B: Never thought you're a start. You're. [00:03:06] Speaker C: You're starting the. You're starting the year off on my. My buttered up list here. [00:03:10] Speaker B: Oh, let's go. Mizelle does famously keep a buttered up list. But speaking of members on set list, we also have fellow LPL English member Yanni. Wait a minute. [00:03:20] Speaker A: How did I get on this list? [00:03:23] Speaker B: I don't know. I'm just assuming. Actually, I don't speak for Lennon, so. [00:03:25] Speaker A: Dude, I am after. [00:03:26] Speaker C: After I took a pencil on my piece of paper and then I wrote your name. [00:03:30] Speaker A: You know, after. After everything I've learned in 2025. I ain't trying to be on any list. [00:03:35] Speaker B: And then he poured butter on it. [00:03:37] Speaker C: Don't worry. [00:03:37] Speaker B: Okay, I was gonna say the joke before what Yachty just said, and now I feel like those are gonna be conflated. But anyway, we're gonna talk all about the LCS format this episode, as well as give the LEC split one week one preview. Annoyingly, this is splits where they do not line up. So every episode title is going to be like, ah, week two, lec, week one, lcs. And maybe at some point in the year, we'll catch up and overlap. But we do also have different number of teams. That's part of it. But before we get into all that, there's a couple of global news topics to touch on. Up first, mazel. I gotta hear you first because this is a heartbreaker for a lot of us that were, you know, following Zamuto's journey in Tier 2. This story broke as of earlier today. Rumors going around it that Zamudo is having visa issues and will not be playing. So what are your thoughts on that? And also who's going to be replacing him? Online's roster. Did we lose Mazel already. [00:04:36] Speaker C: Oh, my God. I was muted. So it's. It's a very sad way to start the year. I feel like I watched the video from the. The owner is like, there was nothing else we could do. It's just literally a no from the government side, which just sucks because I think somebody pointed out, like, all of these LCK Challenger players who have worse, if not way less track record of this last year in terms of competing professionally, get theirs handed to them, like, no issues. And Zabuto is sitting here having competed at the highest level this entire last year and can't get a visa, which is ridiculous. I feel bad for him. I think you could see he's. He's a very Emotional guy. Yes. He didn't tweet very much, but I think it spoke a lot of how he's feeling right now and I really, really hope that he continues to get a shot somewhere. Maybe Maryville just signs another top laner. So they have three top laners, three jugglers, three mid laners, how many people they can get. But it is just really sad. It is cool though. I mean, obviously Dokala gets to come in and be the replacement for Zimuto. I think that was very hyped. He was not going to have a position he tweeted earlier about. It was a quote retweet of his tweet from last year between 100 themes of lion and this year it was between Lyon and McDonald's and he chose the right one. It's, it's a good thing to have Doko back in the league. I think he deserved a starting spot in the first place. It sucks that he's replacing Zamuto, but at least we have a homegrown top laner back in the league. [00:06:09] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's a bittersweet moment because obviously we were excited for Zamuto, happy to have Dokal in the league, but it just sucks that it's at the cost of Zamuto's visa being the issue and also it's at the cost of Dola not being on the broadcast anymore. For anybody that tuned into the, the Winter Showcase games that happened over like in December, we actually announced that Dola was going to be like a more regular member on the broadcast since he wasn't, didn't have a team and we loved having him as a guest. He was going to be on like often on the show and kind of like casting more games and like being on the desk a lot. So we won't have him there anymore. But obviously, I mean, he wants to be a player. That's his focus. So happy that he's making that move. But selfishly it would have been fun to work with him more. But the visa issues don't stop there. I'm hearing rumors specifically for Dignitas having potential visa issues and my source is saying that it could, it's, it's a league wide concern. With the current administration, visas are harder than ever to get right now. This is the first year of the new administration, you know, or I guess second year of the new administration in office. But like for some reason specifically right now it's like they're really doubling down on like having these applications be very difficult. And also for anybody who's been following the, the news. We usually don't get too political on this one. But even just getting into the country like they're checking your social media history, seeing if you've retweeted anything about like J.D. vance or Trump that they don't like and then they deny you entry and apparently those are the types of things that a lot of teams are running into and they're like we have to delete like posts and stuff on some of our players social accounts because they're checking all of that and it's really scary to think about but it's how the real world is affecting our little sphere here. So just a reminder, take care of the people around you. It's. It's getting, it's getting weird out there. So my guess, anybody affected wasn't affecting. [00:08:05] Speaker E: Last year as much is while the election had already occurred, the transition of power had not yet occurred for those visas. So those have likely been obtained pre situation. Whereas this is the first year as you mentioned, with everything in action. So we'll see. [00:08:20] Speaker B: Good point. Yeah. [00:08:20] Speaker E: How the road tolls forward and, and. [00:08:23] Speaker B: It could be a thing for the next four years not to go further. [00:08:26] Speaker A: Down the street a little bit. Like people, people have like made it known on like social media because I do a lot of following of people outside of North America due to being very involved with the lpl. People have mentioned how like they are afraid to like come here for Worlds, which I am super concerned about especially because like, you know, not, not only, you know, I'm concerned about outside of league, but for league especially. I mean I remember the last time Worlds was here and just seeing everybody who I had talked to, they were flying in from other countries to show their support for their teams. And I'm worried that you know, this year we might have a lot, a lot less of that. And I am very, you know, that's something that deeply concerns me and troubles me. Pulling the conversation back a little bit toward Zamuto. [00:09:15] Speaker B: Sure. [00:09:15] Speaker A: You know, where does this kind of like leave him for his career is like really what I'm concerned about, man. Like this is a guy who has been playing for so long right now and like getting through in the Tier three scene and getting into tier two and then, you know, doing what he's done in collegiate. I mean I just, I fear that if he does not find a way into playing in the LCS in 2026, I'm like super, super worried about the rest of his career. [00:09:43] Speaker B: I, I could imagine a world I. And I Don't want to get too predictive, but I could imagine world where he goes the. The Toasty route and goes eu. Yeah, you know. Route. [00:09:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Why not? [00:09:51] Speaker B: You know, like some of these N A players in Tier two that weren't able to make the jump up to Tier one are now just going to try that their luck in the erls. And this is not the same situation because he was supposed to be a starter twice in a row but wasn't able to get in. The reason given was like poor academic standing. Lion did say that, but that doesn't really check out when you look at like his actual record at college and like how he was doing. So yeah, the whole thing just stinks. But again, strap in because news might be breaking over the next week as well. Teams just haven't all announced it, but I'm hearing that other teams are having issues and not every roster is confirmed because not every roster is here currently. And if you can't get them all here, could be an issue. That'll be fun. That will be fun. Yeah. I don't know if that's what I would use for it. [00:10:43] Speaker D: Whole roster makes it hard to play the game. [00:10:45] Speaker B: I apparently I've heard, although you could do the. The lion route and have Lions playing remote for a split. You know, see if that works. [00:10:53] Speaker A: This is gonna be like when we were worried about having scabs back in the day, right? [00:10:58] Speaker B: Well, maybe slightly different like around it. [00:11:01] Speaker A: But yeah, you're just gonna have a couple of players maybe that are just like, oh hey listen, Tier two guy getting a shot. [00:11:07] Speaker B: Let's go. Look, I'm saying that Toasty left too soon. If he had just stuck around. Other news though, in lighter news and more exciting news, this is something that the community's been talking about for a while and we do now have confirmation from lcs. Mark Z put out a like little video primer which was in addition to the written primer that went out. And some more information came out. Number one, LCS road shows. If anyone was a fan of the LEC road shows that were happening last year, it looks like or it's confirmed now LCS will be doing similar. We don't know to what extent because they haven't said how many or when they'll be happening. They said just stay tuned, more information is to follow. But they did tease or where. Yeah, but they did tease that there will be road shows and that the cost, like the budget allocation is that there'll be more regular season show days in. They call it the face off arena, the community usually calls it the closet, but it's basically like the. The side room that doesn't have a live audience. So for people that really love the live audience, this may be bad news for you, because there'll be a couple more show days that aren't getting that live audience. But the benefit is that now we get to go on the road, because that's where the budget allocation gets to go. Because you save. It's very expensive to be on stage. People don't realize, like, how much it costs just to turn the lights on, let alone use all the camera equipment. And the. You know, like, the. That control room is way bigger than, like, the other control room that operates the. The other smaller. Like, there's a lot of stuff behind the scenes that, like, is industry jargon, but there's reasons that it saves them a lot of money, and now they can put that budget towards the road shows. So, everybody, I want to hear where you want a road show to be. We don't know yet, but if you had a list. Yanni, where do you want them to go? [00:12:47] Speaker A: Oh, I want them to go to Philadelphia, and. [00:12:50] Speaker B: Oh, no way. That's crazy. [00:12:52] Speaker A: I want them to go. Well, here's the reason. I think that it would be a very, very good spot. Like, I think that there are a decent amount of local fans, and I think that any Philadelphia locals you're going to get are going to be absolute diehards and, like, actually bring a lot of energy to the arena. Like, not to say that, you know, at every. Because I've been to a ton of shows now. Not to say that they don't bring the energy, because they certainly do. But, like, nobody brings the energy like Philadelphia. [00:13:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:17] Speaker A: Okay. [00:13:18] Speaker B: You know what? I'm more sold on it also. East coast is historically a great place to go for road shows. Like, the crowd always shows up and goes crazy for every finals. I've been on the east coast, so I could see it. Badger, what's your pitch? Where do you want them to go? [00:13:34] Speaker D: Because I live there. Columbus, Ohio, you know. [00:13:39] Speaker A: First place of mlg. [00:13:42] Speaker D: Yeah, exactly. [00:13:43] Speaker B: Okay. Would a big enough crowd show up to warrant it, do you think? [00:13:47] Speaker D: Yes. Yeah, genuinely. I mean, you might not get, like, Nationwide arena, like, sold out, but, like, you could easily go to, like, the Schottenstein center or something like that and have a pretty. Pretty decent amount of attendance. Kangas, can you forward that to whoever? [00:14:07] Speaker B: Okay, I'll let Mark Z know. [00:14:09] Speaker D: Or if. [00:14:09] Speaker B: In case they're still deciding. [00:14:11] Speaker D: Yeah, or any of your compatriots. Are still deciding. Columbus, Ohio, is pretty cool. [00:14:17] Speaker B: All right, Bickle, do you have a pitch? Where would you like them to go? [00:14:19] Speaker E: This is going to be a shocker and following bit of a trend here, but maybe come near me to Boston. [00:14:27] Speaker B: Okay. [00:14:27] Speaker C: Boston? [00:14:27] Speaker B: Wait, that's a city that I actually have been to and know some things about. I think Boston actually does make a lot of sense. Have they done an event in Boston, Pickle? [00:14:38] Speaker E: Like, when's the last time they're on the East Coast? It's always nyc, right? [00:14:42] Speaker B: Yeah. I feel like they've never done Boston. [00:14:44] Speaker A: The Northeast, specifically, because obviously we've done the Carolinas, the North. Like, they need a. They need to move it up. They really need to get the Northeast, which is why. Also a big reason why I said. I said Philly, but Philly. [00:14:56] Speaker E: And I'll drive there. I don't care. [00:14:57] Speaker A: Yeah, like, I'm so glad that you said Boston. Makes a lot of sense, Kangas, because league players are notoriously racist. [00:15:06] Speaker D: What? Wow. [00:15:08] Speaker C: I don't get the. The reference. [00:15:09] Speaker A: Boston. Boston's got some problems. [00:15:12] Speaker B: Oh, does it? [00:15:14] Speaker D: For a reason. [00:15:15] Speaker E: So, hey, we wear that title with pride. [00:15:21] Speaker B: I don't know what's going on, but I'm gonna assume that there's some kind of east coast rivalry and chalk it up to that. Mizel, I'm gonna ask you now. Can you bring us back down to earth and just tell everyone it's probably gonna be at the YouTube arena or some stupid. In California. [00:15:34] Speaker C: I want Chicago again. Oh, Chicago is really cool. Chicago was a lot of fun. [00:15:39] Speaker B: I do. I. Chicago was one of the coolest finals I think that I was ever a part of. It was also like the first final I was ever a part of, so it has a special place my heart for that. But the arena was cool and just. I love Chicago as a city. It's so fun walking the ro. [00:15:51] Speaker E: Something out there. Likely not to happen because potential visa issues, but to give them something back for the fact that they lost and never go back. Toronto. [00:16:02] Speaker B: Oh, you're right. That would be tough, especially with the visa stuff. But I imagine getting into Canada is going to be much easier. The problem being getting visas for all the employees that have to go. [00:16:12] Speaker E: I'm just thinking because it was supposed to have worlds all those years ago and then never ended up coming from. [00:16:17] Speaker A: It because of the whole Puerto Rico. [00:16:23] Speaker C: No, to the fire Fest. [00:16:24] Speaker A: That would be LCS great Eczema, dude, by the way, is really nice place. Like, I. I like them. [00:16:34] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. You know, I like the Toronto idea. Bickle. But I think, unfortunately, just because of how hard it is to go to Canada with that big of a show and that many people that they have to pay for. Yeah, it'd probably make more sense. I hate to say it. New York, just right across the street. [00:16:50] Speaker D: New York. [00:16:51] Speaker E: It's like so boring, but. [00:16:53] Speaker B: I know, I know, but like that. That it's close enough, right? Or. Yeah, somewhere that's like, across from like Niagara. What about that? Boom. [00:17:04] Speaker A: At that point, Right? [00:17:06] Speaker B: True. We could. There's options and we'll keep our eyes on the story because that's a really cool new thing for fans to be excited about. But it doesn't stop there. There's also a new announcement for the Americas cup. If you are a big fan of LTA cross conference competition. I didn't. I don't think I know a single person that was like, oh, LTA is better than lcs. But one of the things people were excited about was like, oh, yeah, NA and South American teams get to compete against each other more often, which is cool. And they're going to try and keep the spirit of that with this America's Cup. It's going to start off a week before first stand in Sao Paulo, which is conveniently hosting first stand. So I imagine that this is kind of a two, two birds with one stone type of situation where not only does this give them more opportunity to show NA versus South American teams, but also test all the audio equipment and video equipment and computers before first stand. Because week one is notorious for having a lot of tech issues. They can sort those out if they just like get all a couple teams there to kind of practice it all a week beforehand. But essentially it's gonna be the second and third place teams for LCS and cb, lol will go and compete. The first place teams will qualify for firsthand. Second and third will now compete in this America's cup and they'll earn spots at a boot camp that will be towards the end of the year. I believe it was around worlds, was when the boot camp was supposed to be happening. And then also MSI teams can qualify fully funded, so. Fully funded, fully funded. [00:18:34] Speaker C: That's. [00:18:34] Speaker B: That's a really big one because especially for the Brazil teams, they credited the boot camp that they did up in North America as a big reason why they were able to do as well as they did. Split three, if you remember. Split one, they. We dropped a game to the South American teams. But then in split three, I mean, they. They got to the finals right, like fly Quest. It was. It was north versus south in the final. So that's kind of cool. And they again credited that boot camp. Now they get a boot camp in Korea, which is really neat. Other things. There's a lot of variety topics. So let's try to get through these. LCS draw show happened. Bickle. Actually, you know what, Badger, I'm gonna throw this to you because you were the one joking about it earlier. Yeah, the draw show happened. What. What are your thoughts? [00:19:12] Speaker D: The draw show happened. [00:19:13] Speaker B: Yeah. You were totally aware of this, right? [00:19:16] Speaker C: It was. [00:19:16] Speaker D: It was something that I was totally aware of, obviously. So, yeah, C9 versus TL round one's kind of cool. Shopify versus fly, round one's pretty great as well. Send stealing basically the core of disguised and playing them in the first round. [00:19:36] Speaker C: Is a pretty great storyline. [00:19:37] Speaker B: That is pretty funny, actually. [00:19:38] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:40] Speaker D: And then lion and Dig will be potentially participating with maybe their full rosters. Who knows at this point? Who know at this point? [00:19:47] Speaker B: Well, we know lion won't. Is the. [00:19:48] Speaker D: Well, I mean, yeah, well, not the originally intended lineup, but. [00:19:53] Speaker B: True, true, true. Yeah. So basically the draw show happened on Monday. Media day was happening at Riot on Monday. Tuesday. As of today's recording, it is Tuesday. So that was a one day turnaround for them to publish the video of the draw show. But it did catch a lot of people by surprise. Be like, oh, that happened. But now we know. Now we know the schedule for opening weekends. So I know a lot of people. So yeah, a lot of people were concerned about that. Of like, we don't know who's playing who. And it's like a week and a half away, like, what's going on there. But at least that is wrapped up. Also, Yanni, one other big thing here. This didn't just affect lcs, it affected every region. Because you were the one to remind me. Prize pools, a big change from Riot. Talk to me about it. [00:20:38] Speaker A: Yeah, so it does affect every region except for 2. Does not affect CB law. Does not affect LCP because of differing partnership models. But this was at the league showcase ahead of the 2025 World Final. They made changes the financial structure. So they removed the regular split prize pools and the global revenue pool regions and they are redirecting those funds into, quote, deeper, more impactful areas. This is where I take issue with the announcement. Where are they going? Where is the money going? Like, yep, you could have. You could have just said nothing. Instead you. You said it's going to deeper impactful areas. Where are we? Is tier two getting a crumb Please, man. It is they. We, we need it over here in NA man to keep this stuff alive and make sure that we're getting players for the future and stuff like that. I can't believe I've turned this into hopping on the soapbox instead of actually talking more about this. But I mean, that's, that's just, you know, that's just it. Now I do understand. I mean, yeah, they, they did in a way. [00:21:42] Speaker B: That is the story. [00:21:43] Speaker A: Yeah, they did it because they thought the payouts for players were like, too small. Like in the end, it was a small bonus check after the team takes their cut and everything like that. So, like, I kind of understand why. Like, I think if you're, if you're like player focused and it's like the players are not getting enough out of, out of split. So we decide or the split of money, not the split of like the actual year. So we decided to allocate that money elsewhere to like, the ecosystem. Fine, Just tell us where it's going, bro. [00:22:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel like this is, it's clearly a money saving thing, but they're trying to package it as, oh, no, the funds are being reallocated. But because they're not telling us where it's going, it's like, yeah, they're being reallocated to our savings account, you know, but also, sorry to say, it's all going towards production. Yeah. So all the casters getting huge bonuses. We're stealing the money. [00:22:36] Speaker A: Hey, listen, y' all deserve it. [00:22:38] Speaker B: No, no, we don't. That was a joke. But thank you, I guess. I appreciate it. But I, I. The real thing is. Yeah, it's like second place gets last year split. One got $20,000. 100 thieves got 20k for getting second place. It's like, yeah, probably took nothing, right? Yeah. So it is kind of. It was such a small prize pool to begin with for the regional leagues. I don't know how much I factor into the business decisions of teams, but I imagine not very much. So, yeah, we'll see if the more information breaks on that of where that money is going. That was a lot of variety topics. Now it is time to get into the other regions before we talk about lcs. Up first is the LPL update. So, Mizel, you already mentioned it's starting soon. Badger already admitted it's going to be the superior league this year. That's what I got. [00:23:28] Speaker D: That's literally opposite of what I said, but all right. [00:23:30] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure that's what I heard. Talk to me. [00:23:34] Speaker D: About the LPL. [00:23:37] Speaker C: Yeah. So we got 14 teams this year, two less than last year. We've got three different groups. It's going to be 16 group Ascend, four teams in group Perseverance, and four teams in group Nirvana. It's going to be a double round robin within the group. So already group Nirvana is getting double the amount of games they got last year in split number one, where it was literally three best of threes in and you're done. Which was absolutely insane. Matt. Obviously best of threes. It's gonna be the hard fearless, where you can only pick once by either team during the series. Obviously, top four group Ascend directly qualified to the playoffs. Then we'll have the top, bottom or bottom two of Group Ascend, all four of the group Perseverance teams and the top two of group Nirvana for the playoff play in, which is the same thing we've had for the last year or so. [00:24:27] Speaker B: Why? [00:24:28] Speaker C: And then bottom two, bottom two of group Nirvana are eliminated from this split. [00:24:34] Speaker D: Okay, so how did they will be back for split? [00:24:36] Speaker B: Get seated because this is the beginning of split one. Was it Demacia Cup? [00:24:39] Speaker C: It was all. No, no. It was all finishes from all the bad teams. Whoa. Yep. [00:24:45] Speaker B: So if you finish poorly last year and completely rebuilt your roster, you still. That roster pays for the sins of the previous years. [00:24:53] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:24:53] Speaker B: Position you can't get out. Crazy. Yeah, but still like that, which I. [00:24:59] Speaker C: I think LNG is going to make the run this year after rebuilding. [00:25:02] Speaker A: I agree. I agree. [00:25:04] Speaker C: Okay, so a couple things for the matchups coming up. We have Weibo vs IG is the first matchup of the year. It's going to be tonight. I'll be casting it with al. Could be a good time, but obviously people aren't going to get that tonight. We have top Esports in jdg, LGD and Ultra prime tomorrow with IG playing two days in a row, then followed up against AL and then Weibo versus blg. So a lot of the Group Ascend matchups to start off the week big other ones are later in the week. On Saturday, it's going to be blg, al, jdg, ig, which would be a good one, Top Esports versus BLG and AL versus edg, which should be a pretty fun one actually in the end. And this is also showing some of the cross conference play, or at least cross group play of group Ascend facing off against group Perseverance teams as well. [00:25:55] Speaker B: Why do we have different groups if there's gonna be cross play? [00:25:58] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Don't worry about it, bro. Don't worry about it. Stay with your league, all right? Stay where. Stay where you're at. [00:26:03] Speaker D: That's so funny. [00:26:05] Speaker E: That sounds really exciting. [00:26:06] Speaker C: Flow. Our flowchart for the. Our flowchart for the. The format is absolutely. [00:26:12] Speaker B: I can only imagine being a graphics creator, like trying to make a graphic to explain the schedule. [00:26:17] Speaker A: Dude, I didn't even know there was. There was cross group play with. With Just. [00:26:23] Speaker C: Just persevere. [00:26:25] Speaker A: And like once, once this podcast is over, I'm prepping for LNG Ultra Prime. Like that is. That is like literally what I'm doing. [00:26:34] Speaker B: That is hilarious. [00:26:35] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:26:36] Speaker B: If Yanni's quiet. If Yanni's quiet the rest of this episode, it's because he's taking his notes for tomorrow night's guest. But mazel for anybody who. Because again, you mentioned it's gonna be tonight, but people won't get this podcast until at least tomorrow. Where can they catch the games then if they didn't catch them live? Plug the channel. [00:26:51] Speaker C: Oh well, if you want to follow us on Twitter, you go lpl underscore English. You can follow all the updates. We are already shadow banned and we just got started. I swear to God there's like a contingent of people that are just trying to get us banned and just like reporting us over and over again when we post anything. But that's just my tinfoil hat conspiracy. [00:27:10] Speaker B: Cage calling it now. [00:27:13] Speaker C: I have another name in mind. But anyways, the fact of the matter is you could just go to Twitch LPL English on Twitch itself and on YouTube and you can find all of our videos, all of our post content will be on the YouTube channel. And we are going to be looking to do not only restreams during the day this year, so we're going to have a computer dedicated to running a restream of all the games the previous night during the day for all of our western viewers. But we're also going to be looking to have a secondary stream in vertical format for all you mobile viewers. [00:27:56] Speaker B: And again, reminder, this is a fan made, community built production. That's crazy that you guys are pulling that off. Well, the hats off to you. [00:28:05] Speaker A: They can support us monetarily too. [00:28:06] Speaker C: Miselle, go to our coffee. If you. If you haven't seen our pin message, Al literally just set it off broadcast. We use it our pin message. We are broke. You could come join us. You could come, you know, give. Give any kind of pen to volunteer. [00:28:24] Speaker A: And listen if any of the. If any of the betters because I know all the betters are in Twitch Chat if you guys are listening to this podcast, if y' all are going to donate all of this money to the sportsbooks when a certain player decides to sell your over under, you could donate a couple of extra bucks to us instead. [00:28:42] Speaker C: True. [00:28:44] Speaker B: Yes, Pickle. [00:28:45] Speaker E: Now those all sound really exciting, but do you want to watch those awesome matchups or do you want to watch the debut of DN Supers? [00:28:53] Speaker B: Let's go. [00:28:55] Speaker C: Super Rip. [00:28:57] Speaker B: Okay, bro. Though. Rip, rip, rip. [00:28:59] Speaker D: Okay bro. [00:29:01] Speaker B: Anymore. But thank you for the LPL update, Miselle and Yanni. Thank you, Bickel, for getting us along here. LCK update next. Talk to me about lck. [00:29:09] Speaker D: So there's a couple good matchups actually this week. We get. We get Hanra versus T1 and the first official format. I mean, I guess we had Kesper cup, but like, do we really count. [00:29:22] Speaker C: Casper cup at this point? [00:29:24] Speaker D: Like, nah. So kind of a bunch of stinkers across the board, if I'm going to be honest this week. So the big matchups are we get Scout on Nonchem vs. Hanwha on Sunday at 3am East coast, and then we get Hanma vs. T1. So really, the Hanoi games are the ones that are kind of carrying it for this week. [00:29:49] Speaker B: Week. [00:29:50] Speaker D: The rest of the games are like, God, it's. I mean, it starts with KT roller coaster versus the DN poopers and then finishes this week with DRX versus T1, which DRX is basically Academy team, I'll have you know. [00:30:05] Speaker E: That is the end Supers with the Duck Dom Peter Revenge tour against kt. [00:30:10] Speaker D: Yes. Oh, gosh, you're right. [00:30:12] Speaker B: It's also. I gotta say, Bickle really started this off, like, hyping up LCK and then Badger. You just brought it down, man. Like, I'm not. [00:30:18] Speaker C: So. [00:30:19] Speaker D: So they're doing. They're doing basically the same thing that they did for LCK cup last year of five team groups. And basically you draft for the. Your. [00:30:30] Speaker B: The other group. [00:30:30] Speaker E: I think you draft for your group and then whichever group has more points becomes the better group and all those teams qualify for playoffs and the other group then has to play amongst themselves to try and qualify. It's. [00:30:45] Speaker D: It is. It's weird. [00:30:46] Speaker B: Why are we doing this? You know what? Okay. In a world we got elder. [00:30:52] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:30:52] Speaker B: In a world where LPL and LCK have super convoluted formats, I gotta say, I'm so happy LCs and LEC, which are the primary leagues we cover, are very easy to follow this year because holy crap, it's it's change for the sake of change. Never feels great. [00:31:06] Speaker D: But yeah. So like the games to watch out for. Hana versus T1. That's Friday, the second series. JJ Rand versus KT is the second series on Saturday. First real test for this team that now has Ghost as their support. [00:31:24] Speaker B: What? [00:31:25] Speaker A: Yes. [00:31:26] Speaker D: You didn't know that? [00:31:27] Speaker B: I didn't know this. [00:31:29] Speaker D: So the. [00:31:29] Speaker B: He's a jungler, right? [00:31:32] Speaker D: That was the Dom180 carry. [00:31:34] Speaker B: Oh, Dom180. [00:31:36] Speaker D: That was. That basically threw the 2021 finals. You're welcome EDG that he went to. [00:31:43] Speaker E: Who was he on last? He was on. [00:31:46] Speaker A: He was on Astro. [00:31:47] Speaker E: Yeah, he was on Astral last. [00:31:48] Speaker D: Astral. Yeah. And then I think he did military service and now he's back and he's playing support on kt. [00:31:56] Speaker C: Well, I mean he was literally just playing because he played in the promotion. [00:32:00] Speaker A: Oh, that's crazy. [00:32:02] Speaker C: By the way, it was literally with Summit and he was One of the POVs that we got to see Summit cheating in. [00:32:07] Speaker B: Yes, that's. That's right. [00:32:09] Speaker A: I forgot about that. [00:32:10] Speaker B: That dude. Imagine a world you wouldn't be support over in lck. You'd be playing. [00:32:14] Speaker E: KT went from the extremely lovable and exciting Duck Dom Peter Bot duo and decided, you know what? Let's throw all of our fan favor away by grabbing Ghost support and he who shall not be named at AD Carry. [00:32:28] Speaker B: Yes, I do know about that. Yeah. RIP Emily Rand. I know. Huge fan of that team. Probably not going to be as big of a fan of. [00:32:36] Speaker D: Of them. [00:32:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that's tough. [00:32:40] Speaker A: I mean, is this not also just like a huge downgrade by the way? Like. [00:32:44] Speaker B: Oh yeah, it is. [00:32:45] Speaker A: Of this, of this roster that was, you know, in the finals, in the world Finals, you might not be like, you might not be going to any internationals this year. [00:32:56] Speaker B: There's like a chance. [00:32:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:33:00] Speaker D: Yeah. But just some other names to look out for. I know I've hyped them up before I mentioned them last week. Daystar is finally the starting mid laner for Fear X over Vikla hopefully. Please, please, please, please, please, please give. [00:33:12] Speaker E: Me Daystar Diable, please. [00:33:14] Speaker D: Yeah. Day Star Diablo is an insane core. I'm so excited for it. So Fear X plays Dogshim, which actually that means that Day Scar they Star versus Scout early on. That's. That's actually kind of. [00:33:26] Speaker A: Thank God we will get together versus scout the big 26. [00:33:32] Speaker B: Man. [00:33:33] Speaker A: Like. [00:33:35] Speaker B: Please, that sounds pretty cursed. [00:33:38] Speaker D: It's pretty good. So maybe maybe catch highlights of like the LCK games this week and then come Back next week for like Damon vs Gen G and you know that telecom war and their games that are actually halfway decent. So. [00:33:52] Speaker B: Okay, sure. Well, thank you for the LCK update. Then again, you know I'm gonna need you to take some notes or from Mazel and Yanni. They got me hyped as hell for lpl even though I didn't understand anything they said about the format. [00:34:04] Speaker A: Heck, I didn't even understand half the things he said about the format. [00:34:07] Speaker B: Okay, that's concerning Yanni and that's a you problem. That's it for global news. A lot more than I expected actually. So let's hop into the episode proper. But before then a reminder, shout out everybody in the community. Let us know if we missed any big news stories that you want us to cover. You can let us know in the community Discord link in the description wherever you are listening. Also, thank you to everybody who up sign supports the podcast or the Patreon through the Merch Shop. Links to those are also in the description as well as a update to the NA Tag Team event which the additional pool, like the leftover stuff from the Patreon and the Merch Shop went towards adding for the prize pool of the LCS Tag team event happening right now. Leaderboard currently it's going to go until tonight I believe, or maybe tomorrow. I don't remember exactly when the end of it is, but currently in first place is Yan and Core jj. Second place is Quid and Jose Dioto. So Team Liquid looking pretty good based on their early season LP gains. They have both been grinding and then Palafox and Xu are in third place. Look at that dude. Palafox notably has been really, really like lacking in his solo queue this year. He is hitting the ground running and silencing a lot of the haters. He is very, very high up there in in Challenger currently, so. So yeah, shout out Palafox and shout out Exum. [00:35:29] Speaker A: All I'm gonna say is I think we said the same thing about like Abu Dage last year. So like fingers crossed that Palafox like you know, puts it, puts it together competitively. [00:35:39] Speaker B: True, true. All right, that means we are done with the global news. Let's hop into the episode proper. Up first we're gonna cover the LCS primer, give you all the information for what to expect from the LCS formats this year as well as do our little tier list ranking of the teams. And then after that we have our week one of LE laid out so we can give some of our thoughts and Predictions for what that will look like. LCS primer time, though. Melle, I'm going to throw it over to you to kick things off. We have three splits and we had the full information come out as to what split one will look like. So tell me, tell the people, what can we expect from the LCS format in split one of 2026? [00:36:22] Speaker C: All right, so there's three groups. There's group. [00:36:28] Speaker B: No, he said the cursed words. [00:36:29] Speaker A: I don't like that. [00:36:32] Speaker C: No, it's going to be awesome. There's a. It's a Swiss format for split number one with three rounds. Top six teams advance to playoffs. Top four seeds are the three zero teams and the three two one teams or are the three zero team and the three. [00:36:47] Speaker B: Yeah. In the upper bracket of the playoffs. [00:36:49] Speaker C: Yep, exactly. Then we actually between the three 1 and 2 teams, the team with the best game record advances as the fifth seed going forward. And the remaining 212 teams will play a last chance tiebreaker for six seed. Everything will be best of three. So screw you, Lec. We've got the good games. [00:37:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:08] Speaker C: Should be a lot of fun. It's going to go pretty decently quick in the Swiss format, and it's going to be really interesting with what styles of matchups we have. Obviously, we had already said the 30 and the 21 team starting the upper bracket, the 30 team in the playoffs itself choose their round one opponent. And then everything else kind of gets filtered out through there. And then the advancing 12 teams will start in the lower bracket. But we've got some banger matchups to start it off as well. But that's a little bit of a quick breakdown of what the league is going to look like in the first place. [00:37:40] Speaker B: Cool. Cool. Yep. So it very similar to the rest of the splits, but the big thing here is it is Swiss and also a lot more games. Best of threes, Best of threes, Swiss. And a lot more games than last year in the split one. We didn't even call it lock in. Like it was just split one. But now we're kind of embracing this like name split one whatever you want to name it because it's like the. The weirdest and shortest one. And then the rest split two and three are like the bigger, longer splits that will lead into the kind of world season. But if I believe in the primary, it's at like 50 more games or something like that. I don't remember exactly what it was, but a lot more games as opposed to last year at this time. I Think that's cool. But splits two and three will look slightly different. Bickle. Thankfully they're the same so you don't have to differentiate from the split three. But what. How do they differ from split one and what can people expect from them? [00:38:35] Speaker E: So big differences here. Still all eight teams instead. Swiss. We're ending up with a single round robin again. Best of three though. Top six teams advancing the playoffs. Top four go to the upper bracket for double Elam 2. After that head to your lower bracket single life. And the bottom two teams obvious eliminated. And yeah, that'll funnel into a six team playoff. Double Elim for the top four teams in spring and summer. It's pretty standard to what we've seen in the past. It's nothing revolutionary, but hey, it works. [00:39:13] Speaker B: We mentioned it last week on the episode that this is the exact same. Both splits are the same format as LEC split two from 2025. I love this format. It's clean, it's simple. Single round robin into a top six playoffs is a classic that I don't think you need to try and iterate on too much. And I think returning to a sense of normalcy will feel good. And the cooler thing is it's going to mirror lec. So we're going to have the same formats, LCs and LEC. Which means it's going to be so much easier to keep track of all the information. Split one's a little jankier because LEC's doing their whole invitational and best of ones to start things off. But by the time we hit split. [00:39:49] Speaker C: I still think that's the coolest thing about split. [00:39:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:51] Speaker C: Anywhere in the world. [00:39:52] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:39:53] Speaker B: Best of one's Fearless. Man, you're great. [00:39:56] Speaker C: No, no, no, no, not that part. The fact that they're actually. They're actually shining light on their tier two system. It's crazy. It's wild. What? True. What would happen if you actually had cross play between your two leagues? Crazy stuff. [00:40:09] Speaker B: Yeah. All they needed to be able to. [00:40:10] Speaker E: Do that is have a tier team that drags in so much attention they can't do anything about it. [00:40:16] Speaker B: Yeah. What happened to doublelifts team again, huh? I don't know. Anyway, that's going to be the. The LCS format primer. We actually got through that much faster than the LEC one. Mostly because it's a very simple year. And again, I think that's a huge positive. Last year LTA was, if I'm just being honest, a bit of a nightmare to explain to people of like what each split looked like and like what was happening and where we were this time. It's gonna be so much easier, especially from a broadcast standpoint, to just be like, oh, here's where we are and this is where what is happening. So that means that we have more time to talk about the teams. A lot of changes happened this past off season. Out of eight teams, meaning 40 total players. Did I do that math right? Eight, eight teams, five players per team. I just did that on the fly. I think it's 40. There were 23. 23 roster changes. Now it's kind of cheating because Sentinels is five new players. But again, 23 is huge. Even 18 would be almost half the league. But as of now, over half the league has move somewhere else. So that will definitely make it harder to power rank them. But we're gonna try our best. So just like last week on lec, we're gonna do a little tier list, kind of hive mind. We've done this a few times on the pod. We're gonna do it again, but this time it'll go much faster because there's only eight teams as opposed to 12 like we had for LEC, but we've done it before, so I don't even need to really describe it too much. We're just gonna go in snake order, put a team on there, and then we have one more round to move them up or down. One place on the tier list. Bickle, you're first in the call. So I'm gonn new first draft choice any LCS team and put it anywhere on the tier list. This time I change it because there's fewer teams. We only have st. S tier, A tier, B tier, C tier and then Immortals tier. So what team would you like to pick and where would you like to place them? [00:42:07] Speaker E: I think I'm gonna keep it short, sweet, to the point. I'm gonna pick everybody's favorites at the moment, Team Liquid, and stick them up in S tier. [00:42:15] Speaker B: Team Liquid in S tier. Okay. Now I know a lot of people have had thoughts on a specific signing Mizell. Actually, I want to get your thoughts first because you've been very opinionated about Morgan as a top laner code in for Team Liquid. Do you think that team look at our deserving of an S tier spot based on that alone or do you think that there's other stuff that might elevate them to S tier? [00:42:39] Speaker C: No, I don't think they're deserving of the S tier spot. Mostly because of their top jungle. I think we've. We've seen Jose Deoda, I know he could can do good things, but I think every time we've seen him attempt something in na, it is gone tragically. So I. I do not believe in the confidence in Jose Dioto and I just absolutely do not believe in Morgan whatsoever. I think it's. It sucks that the other three are paired with them because I think this core has such good possibilities and would absolutely be a top team if they did not have Jose Dioto and Morgan. But unfortunately they do. [00:43:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And actually, just because there's been so many changes, I think it'd be a great idea to just list the roster as we place them. So just a reminder for anybody at home, it's Morgan, Jose Deodo, Quid yon Core jj and when earlier in the last year we heard, oh yeah, Quid Yon Core JJ is going to be that core team. Oh my God, that's an exciting roster. But then, yeah, it didn't really come together. But hey, S tier to start. We can move them around if people are opinionated about it later. But that's what Bickle chose. I will be next here and I'm going to go for maybe a contentious one, but we'll see. I'm going to take Sentinels, which is the newest team in the league. A complete rebuild. The core of disguise from last year with Impact Humbock Jungler coming in a new import joining the league. Dark Wings, Rahel and Huhi and I'm going to throw them down in C tier. I do not have a lot of faith in this Sentinels roster. Impact is coming off of here. His worst split ever. Dark Wings I think is going to be the second worst mid laner in the league. Maybe Palafox would be below him, but I still think Dark Wings has a lot of room to grow. And yes, Rahel who he were able to win a couple of lanes and impress me last split. I think that again with like Berserker coming back, I have high faith in a player like Sajed to really pop off. I don't think bot lane's gonna be very easy for Rahel and Huhi in this next split. So I'm throwing them in C tier. But it sounds are opinionated. So. So who disagrees? [00:44:47] Speaker D: I think this seems B tier. [00:44:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd go B. You'd go B. Okay. Hey, I. I said it might be a little contentious. That is a little contentious. That's the only one above, but that's my pick. Mezelle, you're up next. Where would you like to place a. [00:45:03] Speaker C: Team. [00:45:05] Speaker B: And which team. [00:45:08] Speaker C: That is. That is. That is a toughie. That is a toughie. [00:45:13] Speaker D: I. [00:45:13] Speaker B: This LCS is hard to rank this year. I honestly, I've not even put that much thought into it. So I'm kind of doing this on the fly here, but I have like. [00:45:22] Speaker C: I think I'm gonna put C9 at a tier. [00:45:29] Speaker B: C9 at a tier. The team that made one roster change still Thanatos blabbers, Van Vulcan. But with Loki staying in Korea, it is APA coming in as their mid laner. Why do you have them in a tier? [00:45:43] Speaker C: I just think that this team can function very well, I think behind the scenes. Obviously, narrow's very fun to have in the league, but also pretty decent head coach, I feel like, and kind of manager in some ways. I mean, the biggest struggle will be apa, but I think I got to have a little bit of a personal conversation with him when I was at Liquid one day, and I think he's just extremely motivated to play, prove that he's not the player that everybody keeps trying to shoo him into. And I think that this team, if he can find success and be a little bit more versatile, will be one of the best in the lcs. [00:46:17] Speaker B: Okay. I mean, I've also been an APA believer for a while. I am rooting for him and I'm hoping that this environment will work well with him. I think that having players like Sven Vulcan blabber around, you know, players that will laugh with you kind of rib you can help apart. As opposed to team Liquid, which historically has been more of like a serious environment. Anybody else have strong thoughts on C9 or are we ready to move on to Badger? Sounds like we're ready to move on to Badger. Badger, you're up next then. [00:46:45] Speaker D: All right, you. I. I raised your contentious one and I bring in my contentious one and I say Shopify Rebellion S tier. [00:46:54] Speaker A: I. I'm so mad that you went ahead of me. [00:46:59] Speaker B: Base. I have that too. Do you want to in front of team Liquid or behind? [00:47:03] Speaker D: I want them in front. I think Shopify wins. [00:47:06] Speaker A: Okay. [00:47:06] Speaker E: Oh, wow. [00:47:08] Speaker B: I actually agree. I have Shopify as my current first place team by next week live on broadcast. Maybe that changes once I put more thought into all of this, but currently, just on paper, it's a strict upgrade for them in the mid lane. It's still fudge contracts. B voice. They're tied with C9 for the least changes to the roster. Roster. It's only mid lane that they're Changing Palafox is out, Zinni is in. And Badger, you've been a big zinni guy, right? [00:47:32] Speaker D: Yo. Yeah, no Zinni. Zinny day, sir. And I've been going to bed for Zinni for a while now. Product of the KT system. Was had very strong performances in academy in Korea last year. Kind of Berserker. Levels over of expectation, I would say coming over, but not as big of a name as Berserker because was not from T1. Wasn't hyped up by LS overly coming into this. So I, I, I think that Zinni will be the second best mid laner in the league by the time we start spring split. Like definitively like he's gonna buy quid behind quid. Yeah, I think hands and, or shoulders, head and shoulders above everyone else. But I think Zinni is going to like emerge from the rest of the pack and come in as the second best mid laner once we get into spring split. [00:48:33] Speaker B: Okay, I like it. So Yanni, you also agreed shopify S tier. Why, why do you have it? Is it the same reasons? [00:48:41] Speaker A: Not only the fact that I think Zinnia is going to be, you know, again, one of, one of the best mid laners in the league, but I mean think, look at, look at, you know, obviously we have, you know, our little sheet here that's a stable roster. He is the only change that they've made. This roster is incredibly stable. It's going to be very seamless to integrate him into it. And you don't have a scenario where there's like too many cooks in the kitchen. Right. Like B boy can very much carry a game. I don't, oh, I don't expect fudger contracts to be big carries, but I expect them to do their jobs well and I think that's going to compliments any very well. Like it's going to allow him again. [00:49:20] Speaker B: Breathe and cook a player as hyped as any and then you just remind yourself this was a top three team with freaking pal. Yeah, like think of the potential of what this roster could do. So they're currently at the top. Yanni, you are up next here. You get a pick, tell me the roster that you're picking and then also where you want to put them. [00:49:40] Speaker A: Now, luckily I've been able to formulate a, a backup one. So I got, I got fly Quest and B2 here. You know, I think this is, I think the crowd goes mild with this and the Flag west roster being gakko Scriffin, Quad, Masu and Cryogen. I'm a huge fan of Cryogen. I think this guy is really, really good. I think he has the potential to be one of the best supports in the LCS very quickly. Not saying that he's going to do that in year one, but I was so excited when they picked him up. I think Quad Masu are good enough to at least make your team competitive. [00:50:15] Speaker B: Okay. I like it. So I mean Quad Masu is again the core. They're keeping Gat goes in now. He got a couple of games last year, but he's sticking around. But technically like the newer signings are. Griffin, Cryogen, very young roster dude. Like the overall experience of this roster in tier one is very, very little. Is that like a motivating factor for why B tier? Like you're excited for them but you just don't think they have the experience or why. Why kind of like a middling tier for them. [00:50:42] Speaker A: So Quad and Masu had some problems last year when. When things really mattered and I have that is. That has damaged my outlook on those players in terms of what I. What I thought they were. I still think they're very excellent. But I mean like I don't think you have monsters the best AD carry in the league. I don't think it's close. I don't think Quad is near the best mid laners in the league. I don't think it's close. But I think they're very good. [00:51:09] Speaker B: Good. [00:51:10] Speaker A: So I think that there's. Their ceiling is. Is quite limited. [00:51:14] Speaker B: Yeah, it can be tough when you have inconsistent performances, especially from one worlds to another. Like Mossy was so hyped two years ago and then last year at Worlds he just didn't quite live up to. To the expectations set. The team didn't have that same magic. But maybe changing a couple of the players around will give that spark back. So I think that's the hope for them. But as this is a snake draft, Yanni, you'll actually get another one. So sorry, I. Maybe I'm. I'm springing this on you because you did the one you said you were expecting it but now you're up again. So what's the roster and where do you want to put them? [00:51:46] Speaker A: All right, we are taking disguised man. I. I'm gonna put them in seat here. I don't. I don't think they're quite IMT tier. [00:51:55] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. [00:51:56] Speaker A: But this is. This, this roster is going to be volatile, right? Like this is either going to be an IMT tier team or this is going to be like maybe like tail end of B tier. So. So I'm. I'm picking the happy medium here. Castle Cryra, call me Sajed and Lions Q Again I'm as excited for Criera and Sajed as I was Cryogen. So you know, it's again more n a tier 2 representation getting in really fantastic players at that too. And honestly, you know, looking at. Looking at call me's resume I'm like all right, you know, na mid. You know, in mid lane there's been plenty of room for. For imports to at least be top half mid laners in the league and I think there's potential here for that. [00:52:40] Speaker B: Yeah. And again there's four call ups from tier two to tier one this year being Griffin, Cryogen, Cryos, the Jed and two of them are on, you know, DSG. Two of them are on FlyQuest. So I think both of these teams are going to be very exciting to follow for those reasons alone. But yeah, definitely more reason to be excited about a team like FlyQuest as opposed to DSG. When you look at the. The other players around the them, I'm really hoping because we've had a lot of ad carry rookies come up and then just not do well and I'm hoping that Sajed and Lions click and that they at least show us like a spark because again, I think bot lane's gonna be a tough like it's. It's tough competition. Even if Masu's not firing on all cylinders, I think he and Cryogen could be dangerous. Rahel who he's been Vulcan Yon Core jj B Voice, SEOs Berserker, Isles like FBI Ignar like there. There's some names down there in the bot lane right now and I feel like Lions is probably the weakest support currently. Just looking at the list other than maybe Cryogen who's a little less experienced or Aisles who who hasn't really had like a lot of pop offs lately. And then I. There's gonna be the Ignar haters too. Shout out Pickle. But Mizel or no, sorry, Badger, you are up next. Now there's not many teams left. There's actually only two left. So Badger, you are up. What team would you like to put on and where would you like. [00:54:01] Speaker C: M. [00:54:04] Speaker D: So who's. It's what Dig. [00:54:06] Speaker E: It's Dig and Lion. [00:54:08] Speaker B: Yep, one of those might be actually. [00:54:13] Speaker D: You know what actually since with respect to him but with Zumudo out, I will put lion in A tier here. [00:54:27] Speaker B: Okay. Above or below C9? [00:54:30] Speaker D: Below C9. [00:54:33] Speaker B: Nice. I do have lion up there. I think that it's kind of a four horse race in LCS right now. Shopify, Rebellion and C9 are actually my top two, with Team Liquid and Lion very close behind. I think Lions above Team Liquid, but I think that those are the all the rosters that are in contention, and it seems like everyone so far is agreeing. Do you think DO makes it more exciting for you than Zamudo or less excited? I couldn't actually get that. [00:55:02] Speaker D: I think. I think this team's ready to win. I mean, you have. You have a really good. You have a good mid laner. You have. I mean, the best jungler in the west. And then Berserker and Isles, which Berserker and Isles. I mean, they played pretty well when they were on C9 together the first time around. And then you put it. And a top laner, that could be God number two. Number three in the league, maybe. [00:55:28] Speaker B: Yeah. He doesn't have, like a ton of crazy competition right now. Impacts on a tough one. Morgan Gakkos is new. Photon, Thanatos are probably your competition. Maybe Fudge Castle. Yeah. Okay, cool. Cool. So lion up there in a tier, which means that there's one team left, and that is Dignitas. A almost full rebuild. Only Photons sticking around. Mizelle, you get the call here. Where would you like to put Dignitas on the tier list? [00:56:03] Speaker D: You know what? [00:56:03] Speaker C: I don't want to do this to my boy Xu. I know. I didn't want to do it. [00:56:08] Speaker B: Is it happening? [00:56:09] Speaker C: Put him in the imt. It's over, bro. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if Jonathan the Goat GM is part of the organization. It doesn't matter that Xu is back with them. It just matters that the rest of this roster is ass. [00:56:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I. This is not a roster I'm very excited about. I am still an FBI believer, and I was impressed with Photon last year when he briefly subbed in. But, yeah, I'm not seeing a lot of reason to get excited. Even like head Coach Swiffer, if you remember, he was helping out with team or not helping out with Team Liquid. He was coaching Team Liquid while Spawn was remote and has now moved on. But. But whenever Spawn wasn't there and it was Swiffer in charge, they looked considerably worse than when Spawn was, you know, present and, you know, kind of in control of the team. So that's also. It's like a resume. Immediate resume is not like really helping the coach either. So. [00:57:09] Speaker C: And you know the reason? You know the real reason? It's because they didn't get rid of bakery, they just moved. If they had gotten rid of the fungus, then maybe they would be good. [00:57:19] Speaker B: True. [00:57:20] Speaker C: But they just moved it to another room and hope it wouldn't grow more black mold. [00:57:24] Speaker E: You guys aren't excited for the mid support that is Palafox Ignar? [00:57:30] Speaker B: Oh, I mean they worked in the past year. They did work in the past year. Yeah, right. It's like this is energy all over again, baby. Which if. If you remember, Pal Vox, FBI Ignar did have a hell of a run together. [00:57:43] Speaker E: Took the bad parts of NRG though. [00:57:48] Speaker B: I again, I think FBI. [00:57:51] Speaker E: I will give you. I'm talking about the other two. [00:57:54] Speaker B: Sure, sure. [00:57:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:57:56] Speaker B: It's one of those instances where it's tough because like obviously I'm still. I'm rooting for all the players. I don't dislike any players in the league. There's just some that haven't convinced me based on recent performance that like I should be excited about watching them earlier. Like, like ranking them highly and yeah, that's, that's the tough thing is that there. There's got to be a worse player in their role in a league at any given time. And that was Palafox last year. And he's got to turn it around. Obviously like him and actually being third place in the tag team right now, like really grinding solo. Cube, that's promising, but doesn't mean it's gonna be immediate success. But always happy to be proven wrong. So that means since Mizell, Badger and Yanni all got two picks, I'm just gonna say for the sake of time, me and Becko, we can eat each, move one around. I'm just gonna move Team Liquid down to A tier. I don't think that they deserve to be up there with. With Shopify Rebellion. So what would you like to move around, Bickle? [00:58:49] Speaker E: Only thing I'm gonna do is I'mma bump Sentinels up to B tier. [00:58:55] Speaker B: Sentinels up to B tier. Cool. Would you like them in front or behind a Fly Quest? [00:59:00] Speaker E: Keep them behind. [00:59:00] Speaker B: Fly Cool. So that means our Hive Mind tier list in S tier alone is Shopify Rebellion. Alien. A tier is C9 lion and TL B tier is Fly Quest and Sentinels. C tier is Disguised and an Immortal Steer alone is Dignitas. I actually think this is a pretty almost exactly how I would rank them. [00:59:23] Speaker C: If I just shopify it. No, you're just not a believer. [00:59:31] Speaker B: All Right. Who would you put up there, Miselle? Do you think anybody deserves S tier? I guess out. [00:59:35] Speaker C: I actually don't think so. I think there a bunch of a tier team. But I, I, I'd even argue that SR B tier. Like maybe Tom would be tier bro. [00:59:43] Speaker B: But that's crazy. All right, well, I guess he's not a, he's not a, a zeny believer. [00:59:52] Speaker C: Rebel believer. [00:59:53] Speaker B: Doesn't believe in the rebels. Well, hey, you know what? There's always going to be some dissent. But I just made the rules up on the fly that you don't get to move anything around. So sorry, dude. [01:00:06] Speaker C: Great, bro. It's all part of the propaganda. [01:00:08] Speaker B: Hell yeah. Hell yeah, bro. [01:00:10] Speaker A: Wasn't taking a propaganda at these teams. [01:00:12] Speaker B: If you want propaganda at these nuts. Super. Wait, what's the Coopers the poopers? There we go. The DN Super. I was close. I almost had it. [01:00:24] Speaker A: I could say my east coast New Jersey accent. The DN Supers. [01:00:27] Speaker B: It, it does sound better in your accent, I'm not gonna lie. But that's gonna be it for LCS Primer. We went through all the format, we went through our kind of power ranking slash tier games will start not this coming weekend, but the next weekend that is Saturday, January 24th and 25th. We'll have opening weekends. So we're going to talk more about the matchups on next week's episode ahead of the first weekend of games. But that means that now we can hop over across the sea to LEC because they do have games coming up this next weekend. Before we do that though, does anybody have any final thoughts or any final points for LCS that they want to make sure that they get out this week instead of next week on the episode? Going once, going twice, and moving on to LEC Best of ones, baby. Round of applause. Everyone loves a good, fearless, best of one format, right? Not only that, though, six games a day for three days. Gamers, we got 18 matchups, which we did. Put our predictions down. [01:01:30] Speaker A: Down. [01:01:30] Speaker B: There's no freaking way we're covering all of these. There's just too many. So Bickle, here's how we're going to do it. I'm going to call out on people, just give me the day. So Bigle, you're going to have day one. Just tell me all the matchups and then the interesting matchups on the day and then we can maybe talk about one or two of those. So what's the day one got in store for us? [01:01:49] Speaker E: So day one starts off with the debut of Los Ratons against Fnatic to shift Shifters. I'd have to double I. Shifters. Shifters got. [01:02:00] Speaker A: Yep. [01:02:01] Speaker C: I think you said their name wrong. [01:02:02] Speaker B: Some people call them shitters. Yeah. [01:02:04] Speaker E: Shifters versus Giant X. Heretics versus Na'. [01:02:08] Speaker B: Vi. [01:02:08] Speaker E: Vitality versus sk. The Carmine Core. Civil War between Carmine Core and Carmine Core Blue. And wrapping out the day, we have movie Star Koi against G2. And the two big matchups that we're really going to focus on are that KCC Civil War. Because it'll just be fun to see that infighting. Even though it'll probably be a one sided stomp. But the good game of the day is MCOID versus G2. [01:02:30] Speaker B: Yeah, this is a fun rematch from finals of last year. Split 2. Had to think about that for a second. Oh, also heads up, this is Saturday. So it's gonna be Saturday, Sunday, Monday. LEC has kind of shifted. They don't like Friday games. They like the Monday games instead. So set your alarms for Saturday. Yep. Oh, at least according to. And they did this a lot last year too. [01:02:51] Speaker C: Too. [01:02:51] Speaker A: Oh, shift. [01:02:53] Speaker B: Oh, shift. But yeah, McCoy versus G2 is kind of the big one. [01:02:57] Speaker A: Mo. [01:02:58] Speaker B: We all have G2 as our predictions. But Mizelle, you do still hold out for McCoy. You think there's going to be an upset. And what. What's your reasoning, my boy? [01:03:09] Speaker C: The man, the myth, the legend. I'm going with even wilder tastes here. He's going to be the best mid laner in every split. Oh, not just one. [01:03:18] Speaker B: Wait, that's a good point. [01:03:19] Speaker C: We. [01:03:19] Speaker B: I totally blanked and we never did the. The way too early predictions. You know what, let's just say think of your LEC ones this time. We'll say we'll. We'll keep each other honest. We'll do them next week because it's gonna be a little late to do them now. But I. You can lock that one in. I suppose he's gonna be the best mid laner in all of lec. [01:03:37] Speaker C: Yep. [01:03:38] Speaker B: Hell yeah. I like the confidence. I like the confidence and I like the consistency more than anything. Despite the team kind of proving that it, you know, they don't deserve it. But again, you know, that's neither here nor. That's right. [01:03:53] Speaker E: Damn. Looking back at our old ones, we didn't get the Mr. Beast Dignitas we did. [01:03:58] Speaker B: Yeah, there were some funny ones. Although I did put at my one correct that Kist has a scandal but it swept under the rug cuz we never heard about anything. [01:04:07] Speaker C: True. [01:04:07] Speaker B: So that means obviously it was. [01:04:09] Speaker A: They did a good job. [01:04:15] Speaker B: I Still, shout out to Hawk. He has his schedule changed, so he's not been able to join us lately. But he did get both correct. He said 100 thieves disbands after a playoffs loft to Shopify Rebellion, which technically I think happened. And then Hawk also said somebody's kicked from Fnatic by summer split. Just ridiculous. But anyway, that's day one of LEC Word bouncing all over the place right now. LEC format's crazy. I'm gonna throw this one to Badger. Badger, talk to me about Sunday's LEC game. Just run through the schedule and then let me know which matches to look out for, which ones you think are going to be interesting. [01:04:53] Speaker D: Yeah, so Sunday's LE games are Heretics versus the the sh. Shifters. You know, the muscle memory there. Just. Just, you know, you're doing great. I'm doing great. Lortones versus KCB and a. A a EU Masters Finals rematch. Cool. Glad we're getting that on the LAC stage. Vitality versus Na', VI, the Battle of Midway, SK versus Fnatic, the Battle of Midway 2, G2 versus Giants, Giant X, and then Ronnie on the day. Actually a really good matchup or two really good matchups around the day out. G2 versus Gian X and then MCO versus KC. Using that. Using that game very early on. [01:05:46] Speaker B: Yeah, MCO's got a tough week one, it's G2KC, and then just to spoil it here, it's gonna be Shifters for the final, which I still am not super hot on the Shifters, but if you believe in Jamada, who arguably does have probably as much information and opinions about LEC players as all of us combined, he was a little hotter on them than we were on the podcast guest. So maybe that will be a closer match than I. I'm thinking. But yeah, McCoy's got their workout ahead of them. I do like that Casey McOid matchup. I think that's gonna be really cool. And also I think all the Los Ratons matchups are going to be interesting because, like fanatics, a historic org from day one. Then it's Casey Blue, which, like you said, EU Masters Finals rematch. And then even on day three, their matches get interesting too. Yanni, speaking of day three, talk me through the Monday games for Leck. See, and which ones might stand out to you. [01:06:39] Speaker A: Absolutely. So kicking things off for the day, we've got Navi vs Fnatic. Then we have Vitality vs Karmine, Core Blue, we have Team Heretics vs Giant X, we Shifters vs McOil. Then to round out the day with the last two matches, we have Los Rotes, the Rats vs Carmine Core, and then SK vs G2. Seems like the really interesting one is probably just gonna be Low Sertones versus Carmine Core. Just because you've got these two very fun, volatile fandoms. You gotta be there for the Twitch chat. It's gonna be a banger. [01:07:17] Speaker B: This one's strictly for the viewership numbers. This might legitimately like break LEC viewership records because it's Casey which has been the most viewed team in LEC all of last year or most of last year. And then Los Ratones who like also have crazy viewership. So like this might be a crazy one. [01:07:33] Speaker A: Outside of that, probably the. The matchup to watch. We all believe that these, that this, this Monday slate are all one sided. There is one one of us. Mazel took Carmo and Coy Blue over Vitality. But other than that, everybody else is in agreement with who is going to win those games, which is. [01:07:55] Speaker B: Hear me out. I'm gonna try. Yeah, that is rare, but Mazel. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm just gonna. I'm gonna channel my inner Mizel and give his RA reasoning for my boy Yukino. [01:08:07] Speaker C: Absolutely. [01:08:08] Speaker B: How was my Miselle impression, by the way? I felt actually like that. [01:08:11] Speaker C: It was really good. I couldn't tell. [01:08:18] Speaker B: I just. I had to drop my voice like three octaves. But you know, other than that. All right. Cool. [01:08:23] Speaker E: Cool. [01:08:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:24] Speaker B: We all agree Monday's games are going to be kind of stinkers. The Lo Certanes vs KC will at least be exciting families fandoms. [01:08:31] Speaker E: Yeah. [01:08:31] Speaker B: Yeah, it's gonna be. That's gonna keep the league alive for another couple of months. [01:08:36] Speaker A: Thank you for your service. 07Salute. [01:08:38] Speaker B: Thank you for your service. Yep. Anyway, but with that being said, that's lec. The schedule is gonna be crazy just because of how many days show days are gonna have. We have like the entire schedule. And out of the four weeks of best of ones, three of them are gonna have the same three day schedule. Schedule, which is gross. It's. It's going to be a lot of LEC to watch. But the bright side is because there's so many teams, a lot of them you could kind of skip over. If you want to watch every single one, go for it. Absolutely. More power to you. But if you just want to catch the highlights again, we recommend the KC Civil War for fun because I think it'd be hilarious if Casey Blue wins. MC vs G2 is the big one. McLay vs KC is the big one in terms of just competitive games. And then the Los Ratones games are always fun to. So there we have it. That's going to be it for this episode. [01:09:27] Speaker D: I. [01:09:28] Speaker B: Okay, man, now I'm just remembering I at some point was going to try and distract my or like you guys by having you go on a tangent or something while I looked up another video gag to do in an audio medium. And I completely forgot to do that. And now I'm outing myself live on the podcast that I just didn't prep that for for this week. So you know what? That was a very short one week lived bit, but I think it was super successful all around. We can all agree it was works great. [01:09:55] Speaker E: Fantasy is live for the lcs. [01:09:58] Speaker B: Oh, it's live right now. I. That was part of it. I forgot to include that in the. The primer part at the beginning of the episode. But is that live right now? Like you can set your rosters? [01:10:06] Speaker E: Yep, live right now. [01:10:07] Speaker C: I've already set my roster. [01:10:09] Speaker B: Perfect. Well, in that case, it's time to get the league rundown fantasy up and running again. I'll get that after this episode and make sure to post it in the Community discord board. And I'll tell Ian to post the link to it also in the episode description. So if you get made it to this point of the episode, shout out to you, you're a real one. Also, you can click on the description and find your way to our fantasy league. Unless it just extend. Actually, maybe I have to check. It might just extend from last year because we we had one from last year. But either way, we'll make sure that that is rolling. Thank you everybody for tuning in. Thank you guys for coming. This was a full House episode. Super, super fun to get everyone's opinions on lcs. Now I feel like I forgot something else. Guys, Did I forget something else? [01:10:50] Speaker A: You know, I think something else. [01:10:53] Speaker C: Kangas, it's your birthday. [01:10:56] Speaker B: Not my birthday. [01:10:57] Speaker A: It's Doggo's birthday. But you forgot to tell the people at home. How many stars should they rate this episode? [01:11:06] Speaker B: That's a good question. I would say one for every piece of Exodia that Weevil Underwood stole from Yugi and then threw over the side of the ferry on the way to Duelist Kingdom. [01:11:18] Speaker A: I'm glad that he said every piece that Weevil stole because I was going to say, how are you going to rate it? 6 out of 5 stars? Because we know he's packing with that third leg. [01:11:31] Speaker B: So there's a. This is going to be a random side tangent. There's a funny Yu Gi oh meme. There's a card called little D, like L I L D. And it's like a little dinosaur. And people put that in between the legs of exodia to spread it out. Out. That's a separate joke. Anyway, thank you for listening, everybody. Five stars. [01:11:48] Speaker C: If you could cue up Caillou, it. [01:11:50] Speaker B: Helps everybody know that this is the content that they could be listening to if they wanted some leak content. But most importantly, just remember this. We love you and we'll see you next time. [01:12:01] Speaker D: Goodbye, everybody. [01:12:02] Speaker C: Bye. [01:12:03] Speaker A: Peace. [01:12:04] Speaker B: Oh, yes, Daddy. Sometimes it just falls off the rails at the end. [01:12:08] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness. Sam.