Hot Take: Academy Teams are bad for T2 Scene

Seeing recent results and player signings, it just seems like Academy teams are hurting the talent pool available to create strong t2 competition. The good players can just be bought by franchised teams who want a good academy team to pull people from whenever they need subs, leaving most smaller orgs who are trying to compete for ascension with much less talent to choose from.

Realistically, if you have the chance between signing with a franchised team, even if its on their backup roster, why wouldn't you. Top tier scrimming and coaching + pretty good likelihood that you get a job in the near future if you perform well.

I'm betting this causes this years ascension tournament to be the weakest yet. Next ascension winners from every region are likely going to be a repeat of Bleed esports in terms of success.

Strong poobert academy lol

job security in tier 2 i take it honestly

personally I think players getting better pay and orgs getting more viewership is a net positive for T2, but go off I guess

its actually better. higher pay, higher viewership, and it allows teams to have what EG had, just a bit weaker since theyre their own dedicated team but its also gona be easier to have that.

that would just cause them to be unemployed because theres not too many orgs on t2 already. is healthy dont worry

mitski [#4]

personally I think players getting better pay and orgs getting more viewership is a net positive for T2, but go off I guess

Yea i cant agree with bro

Well Tier 2 was bound to start dying because the thing is since riot introduced maximum 2 ascension teams and a promo/rele system that sometimes didn't guarantee team ascension to Tier 1 orgs were slowly starting to back away since most of the times they just want the money in Tier 1 and these academy teams were the only way riot could save Tier 2. Also this helps bring more viewership and bigger orgs meaning bringing in more money therefore potentially reversing the effects bringing in more orgs just maybe give it time idk

there's more nuance to this imo. For regions that has horrible viewership and little choice, academy team is like others said, bringing in viewerships and security.

However, for Japan this is a mixed bag imo, orgs like FAV and BB missed out of the tournament in place of ZETA and DFM AC, just like you said this unnecessarily tightens the competition which makes it hard for orgs with fewer resources to compete. Even, between orgs with plenty resources have to face elimination like FAV and BB( orgs that are actually trying to elevate the scene). This is not good because FAV just left the scene ( from what I can see).

However, many of this resourceful orgs love to play "refugee camp simulator" ( they hate to scout local talents and choose to actually scout young imports, repeat this word 3 times and you will understand how stupid these orgs are) meaning much of the local talents doesn't have a chance to play in place of imports. In this case Zeta and DFM actually helped the scene by developing the scene's local talent.

I have to say, relationship between viewership and academy teams isn't that straightforward. Zeta and DFM doesn't bring in viewerships.

Not really sure of that, in France KC have just bought young player that couldn't play T1 anyway, it's a good things because they buy player that could win ascension but indeed not participate into T1. Aca team kinda work well in EMEA usually, I donno how it is in NA, but T2 NA scene in lol was always old washed player and NA where never able to make yound NA player shine, donno if thats can happen in Val too.

who cares rankers are winning everything anyway

Anguibok [#10]

Not really sure of that, in France KC have just bought young player that couldn't play T1 anyway, it's a good things because they buy player that could win ascension but indeed not participate into T1. Aca team kinda work well in EMEA usually, I donno how it is in NA, but T2 NA scene in lol was always old washed player and NA where never able to make yound NA player shine, donno if thats can happen in Val too.

In terms of development NA doesn't really need one imo, since everyone is basically either from US or Canada

Whereas in japan unironically Zeta and Dfm has done more than 90% of VCJ orgs in terms of talent development.