A consistent talking that’s bothered me with the narratives around Team Liquid is how often players like CoreJJ and Impact get lumped into the “Korean import” hatedom.
While I understand the apprehension towards random imports (the signing of Ruby is still one of the most ridiculous), it seems so disingenuous that these players get dismissed as Korean imports.
They have green cards, they’ve played in the LCS longer than the LCK, they’ve contributed to the greatest international success for the North American region, and they’ve consistently put effort into their official matches and their personal training.
It feels disingenuous to treat them like one-contract mercenaries here for a pay check. In the case of CoreJJ, it feels like he did more in that 2019-2021 time than any domestic player ever has to try and improve the region by attempting to encourage infrastructure and work ethic culture.
It feels like they’re the ideal import: big name players brought over at their peak form who diligently provide years of service and elevate the domestic level. Sure the last year sucked, but they didn’t get paid, int, then dip like so many others.
But they get tarred with the same dismissive brush of “Korean import ew I want rookie talent from Academy.”
Thing is no-one cares If LCS becomes an import league . No-one wants to watch Koreas C league . Its a large reason NA viewership died, they lost personalities to tried and win something Internationally which they couldn’t do. TL season 9 that was kind of it.
So imports are bad overall. CoreJj made his monet and he and impact are extreme outliers that they made an MSI final and eliminated world champions IG but other than this, the importing NA has done has produced nothing and it’s likely that NA will not attract Koreans of the calibre of corejj, impact, bjergsen anymore. Not enough money and a rapid decline in viewership makes LCS unattractive.