In League of Legends, the situation for the USA at the LoL Worlds 2022 looks bleak: total disgrace looms in their own country. Half of the group matches have already been played, and the North American teams have not won any of their 9 games. LoL expert Martin “Rekkles” Larsson delivers a scathing verdict on North America’s nominal top team, Cloud9.
Who is playing for North America at Worlds? North America is represented by 3 teams at Worlds:
- The nominally strongest team is Cloud9: with the talented Berserker in the bot lane, the former pentakill master Zven as a substitute support, and the experienced Jensen in the mid lane.
- 100 Thieves have a strong, German mid laner in Abbedagge and a master in the top lane in South Korean Ssumday.
- Evil Geniuses were the positive surprise of last year in US LoL. They relied on young North Americans instead of expensive imports. EG has a strong core around mid laner jojopyun, jungler Inspired, and veteran Impact. Their bot laner Danny (18) is sitting out the Worlds.
In the preliminary round, the USA still had something to celebrate:
NA loses all 9 games in the first half of the group stage
How are these teams doing? Truly catastrophic. After Evil Geniuses performed well in the preliminary round, there have only been losses in the group phase: every single game has been lost.
Even against one of the supposedly weakest teams in the main round, “CTBC Flying Oyster” from Taiwan, 100 Thieves suffered a defeat.
Against co-favorites to win Worlds 2022, such as EDward Gaming (15-4 in 28 minutes) or T1 (18-3 in 25 minutes), the US team Cloud9 was utterly demolished.
It would already be a miracle if one of the teams somehow makes it to the quarter-finals – the question now is whether the USA can win even a single game at Worlds.
“Sorry, but they are so bad”
So stunned judges an expert: The legendary bot laner Rekkles is still an active pro, but also follows Worlds as a co-streamer. He is considered one of the best players in Europe of all time.
He watched the current game between T1 and Cloud9 and is pulling his hair out over the North Americans’ mistakes:
- Jensen is left alone as he vows to a turret. The Dane is hopelessly harassed and taken down on a side lane by the T1 duo, Zeus and Oner.
- While the Cloud9 players senselessly chase the “unkillable demon king” Faker in the bot lane, whom they can never catch – instead of helping their colleague.
Rekkles says:
I’m losing my mind watching this. They are so bad. I’m sorry to say this, but they are so bad.
And Rekkles is still considered a moderate and reasonable commentator, who is even friends with Jensen – so he only means well for Cloud9 (via dotesports).
What is the reaction of US fans? There is considerable despair and a certain gallows humor. On reddit it says: Every time fans talked themselves up before Worlds, stating that they are very close to Asia and have Europe in the bag, only to fail like this.
In recent years, the players from TSM like Bjergsen and Doublelift have been blamed for failing at Worlds. But now it is clear: the whole region has the problem.
Cloud9 has been the beacon of hope for years, now they too are disappointing.
What is the reason? Over the last 4 years, the gap between the USA and the other 3 regions in LoL has been growing. In the USA, things simply did not go well this year. At the beginning of 2022, there were actually 3 strong projects built for Worlds:
- Team Liquid bought a team of veterans around Bjergsen – but that didn’t work out and they were unable to qualify for Worlds.
- Cloud9 originally had an exciting experiment planned with a brilliant analyst as coach and young South Koreans, but that experiment also somehow imploded. Apparently, the project failed due to interpersonal issues.
- Evil Geniuses had been strong with bot laner Danny in the Spring Split 2022, but he apparently needs a break to cope with the now increased pressure.
Not even the farewell after the match goes smoothly for Zven and Cloud9:
Even if these 3 projects had worked and the teams had shown up in top form, they would have likely lost many games against the top teams from China and South Korea. The performance gap is simply visible there.
But maybe they could have won one or two games:
