Hi vlr… This week I really wanted to talk about demography and answer the question of the size of the playerpool in each region, but a huge information was release on twitter :
As Faria told us in Platchat, Riot want to more incentive for org to invest in T2 and they think about 2 options :
▪️ Option 1 : Reducing the number of partenered team and go from 10 teams to 6 or 8 team meaning we will go from 2 ascended team to 4 or 6 Ascension teams for each league
▪️ Option 2 : Make LCQ where Tier Two teams could qualify to Masters events
And to be honnest I think we should do both , but today we will just cover the « LCQ for T2 » part. And before starting, we have to admit that tier T2 team beaing allowed to participate to master event, would be an amazing push for organisation to invest in tier 2 team and a lot of people have cry a lot about tier 2 dying… About counter argument some people may say it might devalue tier 1 franchise, but no, I don’t see any structure abandonning Tier 1 just because Tier-2 can qualify, the only problem I can see is that… Will a player under eighteen years old will be allowed to participate to master ? If that not the case, a lot of tier 2 team will have a lot of problem if they qualify.
Anyway, Let’s look at the 3 internationnal event and see how we can change the format to qualify tier 2 teams. And as you will see, a LCQ may not even be needed.
Let’s start with kickoff, and the doble elimination format with 12 team is absolutely horrible, I’ve made already multiple video to explain why. And the best thing we can do is to make a sixteen team doble elimination bracket format, this would absolutely solve every problem, no more 12 team bracket, but also give 4 spot to Tier 2 teams to qualify to master, by only doing 8 more BO. This the perfect solution for kickoff. If this is not the definitve choice, I will be a little bit mad because with this solution you really kill 2 bird in one stone.
So who will be the 4 Tier 2 team that qualify to kickoff ? To be simple : let’s just qualify to kickoff the winner of every Tier 2 Split 3 league, by doing that we don’t even have to organise any offline event wish will make things easier, and we will give more importance to split 3, that wasnt that important last year. Let’s check region by reagion.
And let’s start with Americas, wish is the perfect exemple to illustrate what I mean. We would give 1 slot for the winner of every Tier 2 league, 1 for Brasil, 1 for NA, 1 for Latin America South, and one for Latin America North. This is my favorite solution that require no offline event and put the 4 region on an equal foot, but an alternative where NA have 2 spot and LAN and LAS share one spot would not fully be absurd.
In Apac, it’s a little bit tricky because they are 5 region, for only 4 place, sure we could make the 2 weakest region, Oceania and South Asia play each other, but if want to keep the idea of not making any qualifier and no offline event, then one of them have to play in China, cant be Japan, Korea or South east Asia because that would mean they are a chance than a T2 region have 3 splot in masters wish would not be fair… Oceania is the best choice… But yeah you gonna tell me than Oceanian player playing in China is polarbear in Arlington, but let’s face the truth, Chinarlington is aleady the biggest reserve for Oceanian polarbear on earth, and the best polar bear already all play in Arlington.
About China, yeah 3 spot is a lot, but I suppose we don’t have another choice, since they are kinda alone in their Tier-1, and also if we want to be sure that at least one Chinese team qualify to masters, because if we give 2 spot to region that isnt China, then, they are a really small chance than no chinese team manage to qualify to masters wish would be a huge loss for views.
Also let’s face it 3 spot is a lot, but can even be 4, if Riot doesnt want to make an exception to let Oceania plays in China, wish would be understandable.
In EMEA it depend on the philosophy you want. MENA is split in 2 league that can’t play each other for ping issues, so if the goal is to change nothing to the structure of Tier 2 event in EMEA and not make any offline tournament, then the most logical choice to do is : 1 slot for Levant-North Africa, 1 slot for Gulf and then 2 slot for the new Europeean tournament… But let’s face it, having the 6 best Tier 2 region compete for 2 slot while the 2 worst region have 1 direct slot is a little bit weird, especially if CIS come back and get one of the 2 European slot.
The other philosophy for EMEA would be to just take the prefranchised ERA boundaries. So 1 slot to the 5 European Tier 2, 1 slot for Turkey, 1 for MENA and slot1 for CIS… Afterall Turkey have also a bad ping on Frankfurt, so putting them all alone isn’t absurd. CIS will also need one spot when the war will be over, and MENA is really weak, and is just split in 2 for ping reason, so it’s not absurde to make an exception and make them play each other for one spot.
The only problem of that, is that it would mean Tukey would probably stop playing the combined European T2 tournament, wish may be a huge loss for both Turkey and the tournament.
Ok so covering the repartition of slot for Kickoff, was pretty long, but we still need to cover Split 1 and Split 2 before ending the video.
So for the master that comes after split 1, yeah we will probably need an LCQ. Sure the 2 finalist of Tier-1 should qualify, and the last place would be for the LCQ winner. If we want, we can even make the LCQ a 3rd looser bracket, so that not add too mush game for the team that end 3rd. If we choose to qualify 4 Tier-2 team to that LCQ, like in Kickoff, that would mean thirteen games more wish is not that mush. An alternative possibility is to NOT make an LCQ and make a small tournament with every T2 winner and the winner is allowed to play against the 3rd best Tier-1 team for the last sport.
For champion it’s really easy, we don’t even need a LCQ, the 2 finalist of split 2 are qualified, the best team in point is qualified, and the 2nd best team in point plays against the winner of ascention tournament (It may have an exception if the winner of ascention if a team that did participate to tier 1), in the case they are 3 ascended team in champions, then the final rank of champions will decide who qualify for next year. This solution is perfect because it would change nothing absolutely nothing to Tier 2 structure and just add 1 BO more.
So in conclusion if we want to give a chance to Tier-2 team to participate in international events it doesnt add too many number of game, and it might not even add a single week of tournament, and if Riot decide to not let T2 participate to masters then it will be for other reason than schedule or format. Especially since it may even solve the main issue with Kickoff format and it is really easy to do it for champions.
The only reason Riot would not do it, would be either legal reason, if it’s not possible to let play a player under eighteen on a international event. or for a marketing reason it could hurt Tier 1 to give one slot to tier 2.
To me letting Tier 2 team participate to international event is needed, either to solve some format issus but also to give incentive to organisation to continue to invest in tier 2. As always vlr i’m seeking for debate there, this is a subject that I love to think and talk about, and if you want to debate with me by writing, speaking or even publicly in twitch, I would be glad to do that. Bye.
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