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As someone that's dumped on the LCS before for being boring and lacking any form of personality...also had complained about CQ not being there for Worlds, I think credit where credit's due.
This past weekend of LCS has been absolutely phenomenal. As a viewer that had fallen off in the last few years and only checked out the post-thread discussions, this was one of the first years that I actually sat back down and spent my entire day following both LEC and LCS.
What got me to watch this past weekend were actually 3 reasons:
- Fudge trash talk. Yes, it worked. I was genuinely interested to see if he could back up his trash talk. If he backed down at the last second if he won, or if he kept up his villain arc, or how he would respond if he lost. I wasn't disappointed, he both played well, and his final words were great, "I told you so" neither too disrespectful like the last time nor was it cheap lip service.
- As a fan of "coach LS", I also wanted to see the final result for this team. Were they gonna bomb after all the crazy sh*t concerning their team, or were they somehow gonna make it work? I know to make it to the finals they needed to win, but there was always that feeling of "just a fluke" so this weekend was to answer that question.
- Seeing a clip welcoming the old pros. Ngl, as an "LCS boomer" it was something that made me feel obligated to tune in. It was great seeing them, I didn't care too much about them talking (although that was great), but just seeing them there was fun. It's like how whenever I see Hai on LCS, I will always perk up and listen to him, guy made the miracle run through the gauntlet and he earned my respect for it, the same goes for all the other guys this weekend.
Some takeaways:
- Although there wasn't some big opening ceremony with a live artist performance, it seemed fine. At first, I was a bit let down, but honestly I got over quite quickly when I remembered "The Tongue" and realized "you know what, this is for the better". Of course, I liked the little flashbacks to the past and all that.
- On the topic of opening ceremony, I need to bring up general production value, it was really good. LS had said it himself but the camerawork and stuff looked very much like it was being shot by a cinematographer and it looked damn good. The stage was also pretty cool and more interesting than previous years imo, felt more expressive like the Valorant stage rather than how it was more subtle in past years.
- Although it was a 3-0, surprisingly I wasn't that disappointed like past years where I just rooted for SIlver Scrapes. The games felt enjoyable just watching C9 trying to live up to Fudge's boasting and both teams actually played well. My feeling on their performance was that Top, Jg and Adc performed top tier while Mid and Supp performed great, however not at the top of their games. Zven especially needs a bit more time in support imo, but I'm just an armchair analyst talking out my ass.
I think that the general cast performed quite well, be it Dash, MarkZ, Phreak etc. If I had to give a shout-out, I gotta give it to Jackie Felling and the other responsible heads that I don't know the name of (as this is likely a team effort and not just a "one man army" kind of thing). Over the past year, I've taken note of the constant feedback that the team has taken from this sub, and without much delay gone on to implement it into the broadcast (noticing this in Val as well). Things like the triple-lane or even players getting "fined" more, doubtless you guys likely got into talks with the team to let the players be more open. There's still room for improvement, and I don't wanna make this sound like the job is done or "LCS is back baby!" but, credit where credit is due, we (this sub, myself included) always trash on the LCS, so I thought it would be fine to at show my appreciation for a job well done, just like I "appreciate" when you...don't do a good job.
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