the title of this video is not hyperbole I have to tell you that Riot is announcing today the biggest changes that they have ever made since the Inception of the league ecosystem back in like 2013 uh in fact the future of the LCS nominally is uncertain at this time let's get into it first I'm going to give you the news on all this stuff and then I will provide my analysis and thoughts afterwards as well as the pros and cons of this I'll also say that while I have been pre-brief on this and I've was given the uh an example of the article that's supposed to go out I do not know what the video is that they will probably be putting out with this so if there's stuff in the video that isn't referenced here I'm sorry I don't know it the biggest news that is most relevant to the people that are watching this my audience predominantly in the west and in North America is that there is now going to be two conferences so for a while if you've been watching hotline League I've been saying that there's rumors that Brazil and the LCS are going to get merged it sounds like there's some sort of compromise solution that was basically found which is a north and south conference for the Americas if you're not familiar with conferences there a traditional Sports idea where you have a league or a group of teams that are basically split into two pods you have for instance a West and East Conference Etc this is a North and South Conference so we will have a a conference in the South that takes place in Brazil that will mostly be what CB LW is right now and then you will have the North conference in Americas which is essentially what LCS is right now but with some major changes each of these conferences will only have eight teams in them so CB has more than that right now I believe we're going to have to go down to eight obviously LCS has eight but we're still going to lose some teams because latam is getting dissolved and each conference South and North is going to take a latam team into their group of teams so one of the eight will be a latam team in both North and South the other thing is that they're going to turn the eighth team into a a guest slot which is a term from valerant it's essentially a promotion relegation tool where a team from tier two can move up and compete in that league for a year and they have a chance to lose that slot or gain it again so we'll have a team that will not be part of that yes that means that two of the current LCS teams are going to have to say goodbye they've not said who that is going to be or how that's going to be decided I'm sure everyone will speculate on uh two of them but we will have to see what's up I'll talk more about that in a second so the South and North conference stuff really only comes into play when we head to international events and speaking of international events there are now three international events that's right the reporting that was done by sheep Sports and others is correct they are adding this event and it's happening at the beginning of the year now this is where things are a little confusing if you're reading the article but I'm taking the the understanding of what I was briefed on and combining that here to explain this in the article that I have seen they keep calling it International Tournament SLS split and I think that what Riot is trying to do is create the idea that when season starts in January or whatever there's a massive Global tournament that every team competes in and the beginning of that tournament takes place in each of their own regions and then the five International regions there's now five because of mergers we'll talk about that they all qualify into this one final part of this tournament where all five teams compete against each other and then you Crown a winner uh that is kind of confusing I think that ultimately this is just you have a little mini split that split qualifies to the first International event that is how I'm thinking about it maybe they will explain it in a better way but that's what's up uh the other interesting thing about this event is that it is all Fearless draft so they explain it I I'm not going to get into it here but yeah basically they have Fearless draft for the beginning and then the tournament itself is fearless as well so it's a great way to see I guess more Champions and some people wanted to see Fearless draft so we'll see if they stick with this over time I'm still not completely sold on Fearless draft I think a lot of people who talk about it don't know what it is all right so then we come back to split two uh split two runs and then we have MSI which is now in Ju July so they've moved it because the first International Event sort of moves things around this is very similar to what they did in valerant by the way and at MSI you now only have 10 teams because again we're condensing down to five major regions I'll just say the five major regions that we will see now are going to be Europe Americas China Korea and then Asia Pacific they're kind of merging all of all regions into these five regions uh so MS I will have two teams from each of these regions attend and participate the way this works in Americas is one representative from the North conference and one representative from the South Conference go to compete at MSI so in some sense if you're a North American fan we've lost this slot because there's a team from the south that is not part of our region currently that will be attending and that's how that will work so MSI is now only 10 teams it's in July then then you have worlds worlds is 17 teams each of the five regions will send three teams then there are two other teams that qualify in from MSI or from pre past performance and those fight out in sort of the same way we saw Europe and North America fight a couple years ago so really you just have 16 teams going to Worlds but they're going to say 17 for americaas what this means is that there's going to be a big Regional Championship at the end of the season and I think that they're kind of trying to get away with the idea of like spring split summer split Champions and instead our region of America's the North and South conferences will have one ultimate season winner for our championship at the end of the year that event will also determine who goes to worlds for us the Americas so we'll send three teams one of them is guaranteed to come from each conference so again just to say it this will mean that there's kind of one less team going from North America to Worlds starting next year so I know this is a lot I'm just going to summarize it all really quickly there are now three international events there are now five different regions America's is going to be one of those regions there's a North and South Conference they are essentially North America and Brazil with ladam teams joining up there's now promotion relegation slots there there are less teams at all of the international events than there were previously the first event is fearless draft all right so before we get into the analysis on all this I do just want to say it's a little disappointing that Ry is not doing more media around this uh there's some conversation that I might be able to interview JN around it we were talking about doing that before this came out that got moved John has repeatedly told me in the past interviews that he loves sitting down and talking to me about all this stuff and it doesn't have to necessarily be with me you could go talk to other people obviously I prefer it's me because I create content I like to talk about this stuff but I feel like if you really had a lot of faith in a lot of the changes that you were making you would be holding press conferences you'd be unveiling this as like the grand new plan and it's a little disappointing that there's as of yet not a lot of uh media that is being done around this and so hopefully that changes in the coming days I am hopeful that I can talk to Mark uh and maybe Carlos uh over on the LCS side about what all this means for Americas uh soon but I would love to talk to somebody on the global side about these massive Global changes and if it's not me I hope other people do as well setting aside all that I have created a list of cons and Pros and we're going to go in that order uh so that we leave on a positive note on what all this means uh and I do want to say I find myself in a similar situation to where I was when franchising first came out and that overall this is pretty interesting to me and I think it could be pretty good and I think it could be positive nowadays franchising and the plans that uh took place in 2017 and 2018 did not age well if you go on Reddit there's people that are like always remember Travis sold us this false bill of goods and hyped it up and I don't understand like the methodology there cuz if I was a fortune teller and knew that all this was going to go kind of sour at the end why would I be excited about it because um I care about the sport and it's also my career so I don't understand that philosophy so while I am I think actually kind of positive about a lot of these changes I don't know how they're going to age and I'm very curious what everybody else thinks because it has been so much that it has kind of like frazzled my brain trying to think about all the implications on all this cuz we have massive changes is on the regional side and then also on the global side I don't know what that's going to look like and actually that's a great way to lead off the the list of cons for this which is I think this is a massive System Shock and I think there are a lot of people for instance who have been on the fence about how much they should continue to care about law Esports in North America in particular for the LCS and we find oursel in a world where the LCS may have died uh I was not able to get Riot to tell whether or not they they are sure of if the LCS branding will continue like if we will be able to say that the North conference is the LCS so this may well be the last split of the LCS I think that's because they haven't decided yet and so I think there are a lot of people who might have been watching the LCS for a long time might have hit some hard times recently might have been a little bit excited about some of the stuff that Mark and his team have been doing for this year and they might look at this and be like okay well LCS is dead I don't know what this new thing is going to be so I'm going to leave I think that could be a con it's just just massive changes might scare off a ton of people and on top of that we're reducing teams we're reducing them globally which I think is a bit of a bummer it will feel like law Esports is shrinking I understand why they're doing that we'll talk about that in Pros but I think it can still feel kind of bad and in North America we're seeing a weird version of that we're going to have at least two teams leave by the way there's also a chance that more teams could leave because essentially I believe that Riot will be offering teams a chance to kind of get a buyout or Severance to leave and you'll have at least two teams that will have to make that decision where Riot will make it for them but other teams could decide to do that too so we could see multiple teams leave beyond the two but you know for some fans they might be disappointed in that and what we are getting is something that we'll talk about in the Pro side which is a promotion opportunity but I think the ladam stuff could end up feeling very forced there's no inherent reason why we should have a ladam team here I think it could be really fun you know it reminds me a little bit of what we do over in Europe where you have these teams that have a bit more of an identity tied to a region that they are from and so it could be cool but I could also see a world where this slam team comes in maybe it's just they're getting beat down a ton if because that region has not normally been competitive with with North America uh you could also see a world where that team depending on what restrictions are placed on the team the players they can pick up just ends up becoming the appearance of every other team in North America and so then you have this ladam brand that just kind of has a bunch of international players and some North American talent and maybe one Latin player or something on it it could just end up feeling like why did we do this this kind of strange on the topic of regional stuff feeling forced there is no inherent reason other than sort of structural incentives for the system for the South and North conference to exist there's not been some long-standing North America Brazil rivalry uh I don't even think that if you go globally as a concept that there's like a huge North vers South America rivalry you know in general in Media or concepts like it's not really a thing and I worry if about Brazil not being being competitive enough maybe next year they'll be on us and taking International spots from us but I am not sure of if that will happen it's not been a historical thing I think there's a very good chance that at some point in time we put our best team on a plane they fly to south Pao they show up after I don't know 24 hours of travel they play one match they on a Brazil team and then they fly back and like Jojo is on his phone being like I don't know why we did that that was a waste of time that is not going to feel very America's region you know or that this rivalry will will really exist if that type of stuff is happening and I should be clear that uh Riot has said that there's going to be a match between s south and north before the first International Event and that first split then there's also the Regional Championship that happens at the end so we don't know what those are going to look like maybe it is something where we're sending more North American teams to or North conference teams to the South Conference or vice versa but I just worry that like if at the end of these splits there's supposed to be this big culmination of these regions going to battle against each other and it just feels one-sided very frequently that will feel very anticlimactic and people will be like why did we do this so I worry that that could end up feeling not relevant speaking of relev this also lessens our relevancy on the international stage if you are a fan of North America and its teams because we will not even be competing internationally under the North American region Banner you know you will not be able to be like oh yeah like the US and Canada we're here that's been the big thing we don't have that identity anymore uh we will be competing as the America's Banner there will also be less North American teams competing on the international stage in 2025 than there are in 2024 that is because we were sharing a lot of these slots and tournaments with our South Conference friends so for North American fans that should also feel kind of like a bummer on that topic I just want to say while you know maybe the European League fans or others for a long time have been like oh we should lose our slots we should have less slots at Worlds because we don't perform as well or whatever honestly there's not a lot of evidence of to support that claim and there's certainly not a lot of evidence that hey Brazil has been doing so much better so we need to lose some slots for their sake I get the idea that you want to make sure that the South Conference has relevancy on the international stage I'm just saying it is not like we earned the loss of our slots so it's just kind of a bummer on that front all right let's talk about Pros we're going to end on a more positive note because I want us all to feel good on the outside of this you know it's better to feel good about something then I don't know anyway we're going to get an extra International Tournament people it's funny cuz in the article they're like we've heard you that you would like an International Tournament and I'm like finally you heard this like this has been the constant conversation for over a decade and so I think it's very funny that they're like and you know what we've been listening uh but it is really cool we get this extra event it's happening at the beginning there's now a better Cadence of international play throughout the year because it's not just like May and October you'll now feel like frequently throughout the year you're getting some sort of International Event uh on that front I think a lot of people are excited about Fearless again I'm skeptical on it but I think at the very least they're trying something different it's not just going to feel like mini MSI and that's going to feel kind of neat so I just like the fact that we get to do that uh we'll see if I'm going to be able to go and travel to it I mean it's only going to be I think they said 6 days or so so it's a very short thing but it is kind of fun and it will break up what can sometimes be monotonous Regional play the guest slot this is great uh we've talked a lot about how tier 2 has had issues especially in North America throughout this past year or two I think this will give some good incentive for people to participate I mean we just saw Brandon Sanderson coming in with dragon steel otk com in with star Forge you've got disguise toast if one of these teams end up making it into the LCS for a year and their partner or sponsor whatever you want to say like sticks around you could have like Cloud9 versus Braden Sanderson or disguise toast pting getting uh put up against Team Liquid so I think that's really great I can't comment too much about what that looks like in the Brazil region or the South Conference now but I think that that is uh good news for us uh losing a couple of the teams in the league that people don't care about as much could be good I think for a long time people have been frustrated that certain brands are here we'll see if those are the ones that depart because again uh we don't know yet what this is going to look like but I think it's a a pretty good chance that we lose some teams that have less popularity and we replace them with some teams that could have more popularity uh so that is kind of great while I did say on the con side that losing the LCS as a brand identity could be unfortunate it could also be good because maybe people need a reason to come back and maybe they're kind of over the concept of the LCS and they're ready for something new and so while I would be really sad if they don't just call the North conference the LCS I will also understand if that could be a chance for us to F to have a fresh start create something new people could get into it change in of itself is probably pretty good this league ecosystem on a whole both the North America side but also globally has stagnated we haven't seen very much change they'll go and tweak you know oh we're going to add a couple teams here we're going to have MSI qualify a team in okay now we aren't okay now we are like they've made all sorts of little tweaks here and there and I I think overall like Esports can evolve at a much faster rate than traditional Sports and it probably should especially in the early years that we're technically still in and so I think overall refreshing the whole thing could be great on the other hand it might not be enough change to scare away too many people because if you are just a North American fan and you mostly just watch whenever your teams are playing at home you maybe don't pay attention to the international events it shouldn't feel that different for most days like we're still going to be competing in the arena there will still be eight teams uh they're going to do the Fearless draft stuff I guess in the beginning but ultimately we'll have some sort of either best of one or best of three system you'll get to just watch hopefully Team Liquid and Cloud9 and fly Quest and a lot the brands that you're familiar with face off against maybe some other teams like hopefully that should not be too much of a change and people will still stick around and then a a huge Pro that people will not not necessarily understand as a pro is that we did not completely merge uh this was a big rumor going around for a while we'd seen that in valerent they had one massive league for all of Americas and I think a lot of us and if you've been watching hotline League cubby and I have been talking about our worries that there was just going to be an America's league and it was just going to be probably like 10 teams a bunch of Brazil teams some latam teams and some North American teams all just slam together into one League broadcasting out of the arena and I don't know if that's necessarily the best product for Americas I think a lot of Brazilian fans would be very disappointed if all their teams are now in LA and we have maybe some weird time zone stuff like I don't I don't think that that's necessarily a good thing and so the fact that we were saved from that by this North South Conference situation that right came up with is overall a good thing and I would say that that is a pro so there you go I think overall I am cautiously optimistic that is how I would I would phrase this I think we are not taking too many hits it feels bad that we do not have as many North American teams competing on the international stage I think that's like the biggest thing that I'm bummed about I do think the change overall could be good I'm not too sad about the teams that we're losing I think overall this is probably mostly good maybe not mostly bad and so that's where I'm at but I do know that there are often times ramifications for these things we don't all see and we're going to have to see how this plays out so I do want to hear from all of you what is your reception to all this please leave a comment because I know how I feel but I'm really really struggling to predict how the general Community is going to feel about this because it's so much change uh we will be talk having a pretty big hotline league tonight talk about all this stuff I'm working after I do this video on trying to see if we can get a team owner or multiple team owners on to see uh what responses to all of the news and hopefully we'll have some other guests on so please tune in and hear all that and I'll probably do continued coverage over this as we learn more about it over the coming weeks and months so thanks for watching uh tune in tonight and we'll catch you next time thanks so much for watching this video if you want to support content like this especially when I don't have a sponsor there's a great number of ways to do so in the link tree in the description below uh doing so makes it so that I can keep making these videos for you and I don't just disappear into history like so many other people in Esports before me