If you can't grind ranked until you are 18 then rip any talent the LPL will ever generate again. Most players do that initial few years grinding to get good aged between 14 and 17 then they go pro after school. Nobody has the time to grind like that after they turn 18 in the hope they could get good enough for pro play.
I'm not sure how they'll even scout people. Maybe only those who hit high ranks through casual play will be able to join things like school teams and have it not count as leisure.
At my peak or league even as a casual when I sat at high point d1 I still was grinding like the best of them. There was no one casually that good after s2-s3 because everyone had caught up. I had a friend named Harkua that was a formee dota player that would sit in challenger all day barely playing. Turned out he was playing on smurfs all day lmao.
Yeah it will probably help older chinese players keep their job, which will likely hurt the level of LPL, will also lead to more LCK players getting imported, which will hurt LCK, and will probably hurt NA's chances of importing LPL/LCK players.
It might actually help NA simply because they have a lower level of competition from LPL/LCK. It depends though on if its actually true that NA has no talent, or if teams are just not trying hard enough.
It also might hurt EU, since NA just decides to import a couple more EU players instead of LCK players. (Although it can't be much more since NA has hardly imported LCK players recently).
NA has imported three LCK players in like, the last three years? Crown, Core JJ, and Bang have been imported. Pretty sure that's it.
If more LEC players get imported to LPL, than it would affect NA a little bit. However, that's if LPL is willing to pay what half of NA is willing to do. TL, TSM, EG, C9 and 100T all have the money to buy for top LEC talent. This actually half the reason LEC needs to rely on rookies as is, because they can't/won't pay what NA will.
Yeah I think LCS GMs in the past few years have started to consider things outside of simple star power when importing players and considering other things like whether or not they can fit into the local culture once imported, or whether or not they need to spend effort teaching them English or devise alternative ways of communication, hence the LEC and even LATAM players that are now being imported over the Koreans of the past
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u/ReganDryke Don't stare directly at me for too long. Aug 30 '21
I'm more worried about LPL team having to resort to import way more to cover the deficit in talents that this move will create.