The intro is great! Well done to whoever made it!

I got too excited when I misread the guest's name and thought it was Deman

Richard + Thorin on the same podcast has me like a starving peasant being given a feast these days. BTN spoiled me.

John Needham's passion being likened to a Gnar's charging rage bar culminating into transcendence is absolutely fantastic

The point Thorin makes about the conversation being always around the system , is very simptomatic of American corporative communication. As part of my ongoing master studies , I am reading several books on process management, and they all emphasize how important it is to analyze the processes , without making anyone buthurt , taking the onus from the individuals and puting it in the process itslef because " it improves communication" . While I can see the advantages to that sort of communication , and I am very inclined in communicating that way like that myself in some situations, harsh truths must not be avoided. Yet, we see that all the time in American culture, be it in the corporative world , media ,etc. Accountability has become inexistent , and comfort is overemphasized. Thus this leads into complacency on one hand , and lack of self-awareness on the other. You would think people would have the maturity to be self critical but it seems that is something that is lacking profoundly in this space

It is still so MIND BOGGLING to me how these guys were doing God's work into researching all the shady stuff EG (and others) were doing behind the scenes and so many people of League community (especially reddit) still hated on them! But now look what happened... susprise surprise! Nobody wanted to have ANYTHING to do with the shady org (not even Riot LMAO) and now they got catapulted out of the league. GOOD RIDDANCE!

danan is clearly one of the best lfn guests

Based guest, great speaker, he really deserves a top spot on the shortlist for LFN content on related subjects

Excellent episode. Great guest. Incredible analogies from Thorin lmao

Instant thumbs up for the names on the file folders right off the jump. Love it. Good editors guys! Okay I had to edit this, the whole intro is so dope!

That intro was incredible

Brilliant intro, only bit that would've made it better is seeing someone like Richard Lewis writing the statements on a chalkboard and pinning the pictures onto a wall like a movie detective.

1:47:00 Thorin casually dissing on French not washing themselves, pure gold

Fantastic episode guys kept me sane during work! I honestly think at the digital goods thing you should be able to type a code like 'LEC', 'LCK', 'LCS' (or even esports) to allow some revenue of the RP to just go to certain leagues. That way the argument for developing individual team skins/ banners/ profile pics isn't there for it being time consuming or affecting the quality of the good itself. I think that way the earnest is on the fans. Looking forward to the EG files. I would love IP rights to change for broadcasting and allowing more touranments. Keep up the amazing work.

Watched live. Excellent episode love the guest!

glad you brought danan on the show for this, his perspective was interesting

The worst part is that if you told me 2 teams left LCS, I could've guessed atleast 5 teams that might've left. I'm not confident that these 8 teams will stay in LCS themselves.

I'm a simple woman, I see Richard... I click instantly (lmao that opening is amazing)

Based on Monte’s comments about having warm coats for the esports winter, it would be awesome to have an animated short with Monte, Thorin, and Richard traipsing about a winter wasteland (à la GoT/the revenant), finding the animal corpses of EG, GG, etc., skinning them, and fashioning their coats from them.

The biggest problem with franchising was that people werent buying into teams in the early days, they bought into players. With franchising players bounce around from team to team and you dont really get this chance to see a team grow. They should have left things the way they were with relegations because it gave regular players a chance to compete for an LCS slot. Some of the best teams ever from the LCS history came from the challenger scene. Franchising was doomed to begin with and any team that got out early was smart.

Man I love the intro you guys just consistently improve its awesome to see

Doesn't matter what game you cover or if I watch it/keep up with it. Just love the industry insight and analysis. Easily my favourite podcast you guys do.

The intro is incredible!

Thorin needs to get the longer pop filter for the SM7B and put it on his MV7 for that peaking & plosives

1:03:29 Riot won't listen when you tell them the wheel exists

That intro was better than anything Hollywood has put in the last year.

1:08:00 hate to say it but Travis Gafford has been saying it would be better as an 8 team league for quite awhile...

i see 4horsemen, i watch. thank you all.

Honestly I forgot how the summoning procces worked so I just wrote some comments under Monti's Tweets that I want this but that was probably wrong 😅 love that I got it anyways ❤

i'm so ready for the EG files series

This definitely goes down in the books as an all-time important content piece. People should seriously give this a watch.

39:11 they did branded emotes at the beginning of last year (i think)- im curious to know how those sales went- obviously if it were a success they wouldve kept doing it but what do i know

That intro is fire

thank you Thoorin for the intro. that made my day. :) ps. you should have never trusted me, I mean us...

Just dawned on me how much theses guys are like the two Muppets on the balcony.

I’m still a big believer that scheduling the broadcast for LCS is a huge issue. I want to watch a specific team play, and with the broadcast just being a set timeframe for each team to play I can never know when to tune in unless it’s the first match of the day.

started like a true crime documentary, love it

That new Golden State Warriors Arena was very pricey.... I would love Riot to make custom skins for teams and pro players. This is something I would spend money. I have not purchased a skin since 2015-2016. But if Riot made individual skins for the teams and players during the season and half the money goes to the team I would fully support and purchase. I made a conscious decision to stop giving Riot money years back because they weren't putting money back into the game to fix champions or game play elements. Riot was just creating a bigger art department and more skins every year. Riot claims to have reinvented the wheel...

Was Thorin talking about Danan when he was saying "I am so sick of the use of phrases like "positive energy" and "I don't get Americans Richard,..."? I was watching thinking that Danan (well everyone) looks super uncomfortable here because its not really clear if he's shitting directly on the guest or not.

Dont watch LoL but I just love these guys.

At this point, esports is like a phoenix (insert clever worlds song 2019 one-liner). It must die so it can live.

Why don’t you guys upload on Spotify anymore? Love the content but kills my phone battery when I have to leave YT open

thanks for the content

Licorice not being on a team has to be one of the most criminal things this coming split.

1:15:00 soooo time for league of legends 2?

Remember the days before the LCS. It was wonderful.

2:34:30 THREE HORSEMEN!? This is an outrage! I demand that you bring back Chobra, even if he just sits there in the fourth box, saying nothing.

I thought the dirt on Danans shirt was dirt on my screen for a second.

OWL being exclusive to KZfaq contributed to its downfall imo

1:39:55 1:54:35

5 out of 10 teams wanted out of NA LCS according to Richard 29:30 . And we're expecting these guys to beat the best that Korea, China and EU has to offer. Lmfao

I'm gonna need Monte to coin "we're your short on esports" 😂

Ahhh Thoorin I just got off my freeze pipe and after that banger of and intro you crack me up because its soooo truee. I ain't doin shit my guy! this is going to be a banger. I'm keen.

Anyone gonna check that Danny isn't still locked up in EG's basement, still shooting promo videos for Riot with Nas?

God I'd love a tournament league system instead of the current splits, give me more international competition and it will let the best western teams improve.

I seen 100 Valorants ads to 0 League of Legends Ads. Im js

I think Travis may have been right for once, which is rare, but for the past few years he has been saying the LCS should go to 8 teams for all the reason why monte said this is a good idea and basically the same reasons travis recently gave for this being a good thing.

Imagine how great this show would be if Thorin would ACTUALLY let someone finish a sentence....like, sir let people finish a thought before injecting yourself in

I think that NA not competing internationally kinda killed it for me. Why do I watch esports? To see the best players play and to have conversations about it with people. Whats the point of watching the LCS? None of the players are good, if the game is good i can just watch the co streamer highlights bc its more engaging. Pretty sure i watched more LEC bc format was better and had more tension than infinite regular season game hell.

The teams don't do a good job of creating idols of the players. They need to bridge other sources like models, sports players and actors do.

Its so stupid that they dont just make ward skins for the teams. Would be so easy

They cant do it since even with a full text to speach ai voice it would be too easy to accidentally share identifying information and get in legal trouble, but how awsome would it be to have the fourth horseman be a pale rider talking about the death of eg with the disembodied voice of its resentful former employees.

I wish Thorin went the Richard route and went for the "How's your LCS TODAY dickhead", that would've been awesome!

League is a game that supposed to die like 10 years ago, esport let League grow, but franchise made league way bigger than it supposed to be, it will only die sooner because of it

The real ones

Nice!

I have to say in hindsight that riot was right and riot tried to do whats best for esport. The only thing it could have achieve tho is to slow down the transition as twitch in itself grow big enough to offer its own path to become a successful streamer. I would say that even tho esport use twitch as a platform it is competing against it as well for the viewers of course. It all breaks down to that now and e sports really needs now an edge like gambling to gain grounds again. Even that might be in vain now. When riot said you are nothing without us that was true in the beginning because esport did serve as a head jump. But that is basically all gone now. Twitch is just able to offer way much more. It works locally to your country you are your own boss, you can do it part time etc. Riot knew that it wont be able to out grow the natural process of the streaming platform the only thing that it can do i to slow down the transition lol. If you can think without the bias that riot is bad you might actually agree. Esports and game streaming as a service is competing with each other and esport needs to offer more then what your favorite streamer can offer. It also need to offer more in terms of job prospects and future offering to not have jumped over in the process. And it looks bleak for esports. I think that is the esport winter in the core. We might be at a point where coming from the esports as a newcomer might held you back actually. As to if you were to concentrate on your own stream, brand. There is possibly also a denial in the scene about this. Also i have to say that the old ways esports used to be is not going to work out anymore. Esports needs money the competition needs to be big it needs to offer also a lot more for the players and also the staff aswell and gambling is probably the last thing that can make a difference thats because of the venue, ad surface. But even then it might be late.

yes content creators, make your content.

anything except korea and china in just dead there is just not interesting anymore there is no m5 like teams anymore and dont forget lol is very old now its need lol2. Truly i watch t1 games in the majority (or lpl lck games) the developer must be involved on esport so they can provide solutions to in gam problems but not in the organization of the tournaments its good to have an income from the tournaments so they can have a team to support turnaneds with tools and on the spot truble shooting if some bug occur .

What is dead may never die e sports deLinda est

Dont hate on mobile games though shit can be mad fun and social

The doomer boomers

How do you make digital goods that people will buy though? it makes sense in Valorant where there are only x amount of weapons so it's easy to make skins for that set amount, you can't make skins for lol teams there are soo many champions and they aren't slowing down so that's completely unrealistic, still can't fathom how it's been a decade plus and no other developer has even thought about trying to challenge Riot with a game that's just definitively better for modern standards.

First

So I think I know how well this comment will go down. But about Thorins point on nobody saying they wanted 8 LCS teams before the news, Travis Gafford did suggest that 8 teams would be better for the LCS a few months ago…

What if, for the digital goods, the teams would need to hire the people themselves for the development of the goods and working in cooperation with riot

Monte and thorin 🤡

SR is awful now. I tried to play a draft game the other day and got matched with someone playing their first game. I quit and won’t go back.