This year’s League of Legends World Championship has produced another competitive group of teams heading into the quarterfinals. It includes three teams from Europe and Korea and two teams from China. For Korea and China, this is no surprise, as both regions have dominated group stage matches for as long as I have played (S4). However, for the first time ever, the developing region known as Europe has successfully qualified three teams this year into playoffs. For those of you who may have been in a coma for five years, this may come off as some kind of joke, but for the rest of us this is no joke, this is our reality. And specifically, a sad reality for all North American fans.

What NA sees when it looks at Europe is what could have been. You see, Europe and NA are like two friends in school. Rooting for each other when one is up, and finding the good when one is down. They weren’t cool like the Koreans, who were always around the hottest girls, and they got bullied a lot by the Chinese, but it looked as though the gap was finally closing. Well, NA couldn’t wait any longer. My boy finally wanted to bring home that A1, World, Championship POONANAN they’ve been waiting years for, so he decided to make some changes. He got a new haircut and bought new imported clothes to match the Koreans. But he was fooling nobody, he was still the same old clown. Meanwhile, after NA ditched his dogs Europe, Europe grew 2 feet and found who he was. Now Europe out here getting all the model DM’s while NA keeps settling for the easy girl down his street. Nobody is saying there’s anything wrong with easy, but it may leave NA thinking, what did I do wrong?

Let’s be clear, North America hasn’t always been bad, and Europe probably always was the better looking of the two, but this does not warrant the gap that has spread between the two regions. Native veterans like Doublelift, Aphromoo, Xmithie, and Sneaky have brought pride to the NA name, but with every year their dominance seems to fade, making the region even more of a question mark. This leads me to bring up a man named ‘Yassuo’ also known as Moe.

Moe is an NA homegrown talent based out of New York who mains and resides mainly in the midlane. He has proven climbing the competitive ladder of several regions a piece of cake, and does so with some of the highest skill cap champions in the game with arguably the hardest role in the game. Before I continue, I do not claim to be an expert at the intricacies of the game, but I do trust my gut. Moe has the talent and maturity to not only enter the LCS as a rookie midlaner and succeed, but also lead a team at his age. As for reasons for this is true, my reasoning comes down to the brand he has built and maintained. There is a competitive nature to Moe, which shows in just how fast his channel blew up in the streaming community. Comparable to television shows, his channel serves as an example of how much work ethic and creativity Moe is capable of. But this begs the question of why would he. His path to success has been laid out, there is no need for him to divert from his current trajectory. I did not begin this with why HE should join the LCS because there isn’t much in it, which is why I am begging him to join.

Despite C9’s semi-final run at last worlds and CLG’s MSI finals appearance in 2016, I do not have many happy memories from international competitions. With emerging regions like Europe popping up into the scene, it becomes more and more obvious NA organizations need to look for solutions to their problems, which I believe can be fixed by bringing in talented native players like Moe into their first teams. What sucks more about losing so much is that we do it without even playing our own region’s players. Part of what makes me proud of my region is sending off the best players that grew up in the same states, provinces, counties, and cities as us fans did. A region’s performance not only reflects on the pros but also the region’s player base, and right now it doesn’t feel good to be an NA fan. Hopefully, this off-season we see less washed up imports and more big-nosed prospects. Also, I hope to watch worlds after the group stage next year.