International competition is the lifeblood of esports. The viewership is just on another level entirely. Both for MSI and Worlds.

10 international BO5s a year is just way too few. Especially when a big chunk of them were Korea vs Korea or China vs China, so it probably ended up being like 7-8 a year on average.

7 to 8 international bo5s in a full fucking year. No wonder we didn’t see shit like Rookie vs Faker bo5 ever. Or Knight vs Chovy.

LoL esports has been enjoyable but it could have been soooooo much better, it’s actually wild.

Imagine how insanely hype history would be if we saw the regions clash more often. There are so many great players we didn’t really get to see compete out of their regions very often.

It’s much better with new MSI format and with the upcoming 3rd international tournament next year but this should have been a thing for many years already. I can’t believe they dragged their feet that much.

  • LardShorteningBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    As a minimum the 2-2 stage at Swiss should’ve been Bo5 instead of a Bo3 because those matches were all really good ones, and 2-2 will always have relatively strong sides facing off for the final three knockout spots. Even better Riot could also make all of the Swiss elimination matches Bo5, in total it would be converting 8 Bo3s into 8 Bo5s. I think it’s a bit weird that play-ins had Bo5s but then Swiss doesn’t, which means (no disrespect) some mediocre/weak play-in teams got to play a Bo5 at Worlds whereas some of the main stage teams only got a Bo3 before being eliminated.

    But other than that, I don’t think adding more international events is going to resolve the “issue” of not seeing specific matchups. You just can’t guarantee those matchups like Knight vs Chovy will happen because of seeding and brackets and teams getting knocked out. Ultimately GenG didn’t perform when it matters and so that’s the reason why we aren’t seeing Chovy vs Knight in a Bo5. The only way to ensure a Bo5 matchup across all top teams is to have a round robin league with Bo5 matches, and honestly I’m not sure people would actually want that format.