SamBR [#25]
My friend, I'm trying to say that things are much easier today than they were 10 years ago. The Riot Premier is excellent for people who dream of making a living by playing games. There's a lot of complaining, as if nothing is ever enough.
As for TheGuard players' situation, it's really sad, but the organization is so terrible that the players found out through Twitter that the org wasn't interested in joining the franchises. If there's anyone to blame in this story, it's TheGuard.
The Riot Premier is excellent for people who dream of making a living by playing games
This is where you have it wrong. As someone that went from playing in the 4th national PGL CS1.6 division in Romania, all the way to winning ESL European tournaments, if I'd be a Val young player now and I would see what's happening with Ascension, I'd stay away from Premier and probably wait for CS2 to come out and try my chance to pro there.
The pyramid created by Riot only works if you prioritize players and their teams, because that's what it is based from in theory. Reality shows us that in practice this is not the case, so many people will consider it as a potential waste of time and resources. Remember, players in Premier and challengers will mainly have to pay for themselves, much like I had to pay my own plane tickets to fly to Spain to play tournaments. Eventually, nobody will risk doing that knowing that in the moment you are close to making it to the top, Riot can just pull the rug from under you.