The Impact Professional Players Bring to the Rift

The League Championship Series is a new frontier for eSports. For a while, the streamed pro matches in the various tournaments were available through mediums like Twitch or Own3d. Fans watched the streams, supported their favorite teams in the chat and enjoyed watching high level play (like Scarra!).

They didn’t receive a ton of publicity, but there would always be the hardcore fans there to watch. Nowadays, the LCS system brings a much easier to use and flashier website where just about everything a fan would want to know can be found. However with the new publicity, influence follows. They may not know it, but the pros have a huge influence on the game they play, just by playing it. When people see something new or interesting, they want to try it themselves.

Flavor of the Month

FotM can be defined in LoL terms as champions or builds that are popular for a temporary period of time. People watching the LCS streams saw an unusual champion being picked many times or an out of the ordinary item being bought. Those that watched the earlier weeks of the LCS will remember the hugely popular Kayle mid picks. With her varied kit, she became a strong mid pick that could counter the dives that took the lives of a usually squishy AP carry.

In the EU LCS scene the champion Urgot was brought out as an AD carry. Hardly ever picked, Urgot became a suddenly popular pick for the bot lane. Dontmashme from GGU began using the item Iceborne Gauntlet on his Ezreal AD carry. While the first thought of an AD carry would be to get more AD, lifesteal or attack speed, he wanted the ability to catch his prey. The slowing effect from the Gauntlet makes it much easier for an AD carry to catch fleeing champions or slow them enouh for his team to catch up to and take down.

Meta

With most teams in their new gaming houses, they have time to work up strategies and schemes to beat their opponents. The first one displayed was an out of the ordinary amount of ward placement by CLG against TSM. While not an outrageous plan, the amount of wards made a difference in their game, allowing a swift victory for CLG. Games like this strengthened the philosophy ‘wards win games’.

The game has come to the point where anyone straying from the original meta of a solo top, jungle, mid, AD and support bot, is chastised harshly and dismissed as a troll. A great many of the games shown in the LCS have had teams switch their top and bottom lanes, in an attempt to throw the opponent off. With the range an AD carry has and the poke/heal provided by the support, the opposing bruiser has an extremely difficult time in lane. By preparing their own top to deal with the same situation, they might create a deficit by surprise that can get them an early lead.

Player Behavior

Watching streams is becoming a common pastime with casual League players. If it isn’t a day where there are official LCS matches, then a fan can turn to one of many pro players who stream on their own. The influence pros have here is that of monkey see monkey do. If casual players see their favorite pro player trash talking or giving props the viewer is more likely to act like someone they look up to.

Fifteen year old Jimmy watching a stream will likely see the pro player dominate their lane and possibly see them pull out lines that put down the other team or flame against teammates. If a young kid watching an NFL match watched their favorite quarterback throwing a fit on the sideline, dropping F-bombs left and right they’ll be influenced by that in thinking that they can act like that player.

Whether or not LCS and the NFL are on the same tier of popularity is irrelevant. The fact that a fan looks up to and watches a player’s every move is the exact same.