It’s funny to me when people complain and say that Wildcards don’t deserve more than one slot at Worlds due to their previous performances on the international stage. Really, it’s funny. I understand how people can say these things about Wildcard regions, but it’s a matter of prejudice more than anything else.

Let me clarify.

League of Legends is a global game, and the world stage is clearly where they push the elite limits of performance. As a result, the Wildcard slot is the junkyard of the World’s tournament, expected to under-perform, lucky to have a slot. But where do these regions actually get their shot on a world stage, or even an international birth? There’s nothing global about our competitive leagues if Oceania hasn’t played a game against North America. At this point, what’s “global” is simply the “Major 5 regions”.

I am of the opinion that we should be fundamentally growing every region to match the strength of our major 5 in one way or another.

Opportunity, support and challenging conventions to provide the best possible way to improve should be mandatory. If we aren’t giving them opportunity, how can we challenge them? If we aren’t giving support, how will they grow?

It really does frustrate me to no end when we can’t provide these opportunities, and here is where my gripes really start as an Oceanic player, a caster and most importantly, a fan (commence bias).

There are advantages that certain Wildcard regions get geographically, which presents more opportunities to grow. Latin America can play on North America. Turkey competes on Europe West, CIS also is within touching distance of a major server

Strike one: Opportunities are missing for scrims and practice for our region’s growth.

It’s essentially like a bell curve.

The best team in Oceania wins every scrim against Oceanic teams, and gets no value from this practice.They’re a high performer. How do they continue to improve? What they offer by scrimming these other teams is leveling everyone else up around them. Eventually every team plateaus at a point of no growth, and we suffer as an entire region from that moment onward. The way we continue to grow, is to provide them opportunities where they are an average performer in a high performing environment, just like the teams scrimming them.

So geographically it’s unfair, but that’s not everything.

Money. Strike two.

The root of all evil, yet a necessity for success, ultimately we have less of it in a minor region. Brazil have the advantage of a lot of support, and CIS have the advantage of their economy being able to support their work. Room for growth when lacking geographically comes back to monetary aid; being able to travel and compete is the straightest line to success in situations like this. Boot camps, support staffing, team bonding and just general support would mean that players would not need to be studying and focusing 50% of their efforts on exit plans from competitive play.

It’s heart-breaking to see our teams unable to put 100% into their craft, and when I have to talk as though they are giving it everything they have, when knowing they aren’t.. it hurts me. They could be capable of so much more.

I am a former professional player in the Oceanic server, who had to work full time whilst studying and playing tournaments. It isn’t sustainable, and it ruined a lot of relationships. I was kicked out of my own home by my parents for playing Video Games. I sympathise with our players more than most people will ever know.

Sending two wildcard teams to worlds makes sense to me. Realistically, I agree that we should send only the two best of our eight wildcard regions to attempt to compete with the best of each major region. What do the other six regions do now though? How do the other six grow? Think about it; the exposure of the World’s competing teams is at a base level, higher than every other competing wildcard region for the sake of business growth. They establish themselves more fortuitously through qualifying, and should realistically be able to utilise this to grow within their own region. They garner skills and develop at an accelerated pace due to competing on the world stage, something the other six also miss.

They get more. They just get more. And it snowballs in a way it was never meant to.

Whoever wins IWCQ has earned their worlds spot. But if they earn it once, why wouldn’t they earn it again due to what they gain from it?

This is the kicker.

Wildcard tournaments are structurally unfair.