How NA League of Legends cement themselves as the worst major region after crashing out of Worlds 2022 groups with 15 losses

The Group Stage at League of Legends Worlds 2022 has officially concluded. It was filled with exhilarating games where the Chinese and South Korean teams grabbed the most victories.

However, things did not go that well for NA (North America) as all the teams from the region crashed out of Worlds 2022 Group Stage with only three wins and 15 losses. In fact, they ended up last in their respective groups with 1-5 score each.

This was arguably one of the most disappointing performances for the region as the teams simply failed to show up. The players did not have a single idea on how to draft or what plan to use in order to tackle the South Korean and Chinese teams, which is a terrible situation for the region's future.

Note: The views present in this article are subjective and reflect the writer's opinion.

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NA teams' failure at League of Legends Worlds 2022 demonstrates faulty development process

The teams that qualified for League of Legends Worlds 2022 from NA are Evil Geniuses, 100 Thieves, and Cloud9. Fans did not have a lot of expectations from these teams, but a few felt that atleast Cloud9 would be able to show up when it mattered.

In fact, a few fans hoped that at least one NA team would win games against the South Korean and Chinese teams. Unfortunately, that did not happen as they picked up only three wins and lost a total of 15 games in the Group Stage.

The three wins that they grabbed came against underperforming EU teams and one minor regional roster. In general, the NA side failed to perform against any of the top-ranked teams at Worlds 2022.

This might be a meme to many as the fanbase often jokes about NA as a region. The League of Legends community often terms NA as "Near Airport," as a joke about the early exit of the teams from that region in major tournaments.

However, in the past, at least one NA team managed to come out on top despite the difficulty and upset one top team from the World Championships. This time, it was a new low where none of the NA rosters were able to show up. The games against the South Korean and Chinese teams were excessively bad.

None of the games were close as the matches ended in utter demolition. The problem with this is that these horrible results simply demonstrated the huge gap that has developed between NA teams and other regions (including the EU) in both terms of quality and development process.

NA as a region, in general, is known to buy League of Legends players from other locations with a gargantuan amount of money. Unfortunately, in most cases it is either stars who used to be good or new promising contenders who are yet to complete their development process.

This has been a major complaint for a long time now as NA organizations refuse to develop players from grassroots level unlike South Korean, Chinese, and European teams. This leads to star-studded teams with zero synergy, which ultimately leads to downfall on the international stage.

Apart from that, there is also the issue where the general skill ceiling of NA players are much lower on account of how they practice and play the game. In fact, the former World Champion, Rookie (currently midlaner for V5 in the LPL), once said that western League of Legends players are quite lazy and the training regime they follow is way too lenient.

While this might sound too harsh, it is possible that he is correct as the performance of NA at Worlds 2022 is beyond abysmal.