On December 19 Riot Games announced the creation of a new league known as the Pacific Championship Series (PCS). It is said to be a merger of the League of Legends Master Series (LMS) and League of Legends Southeast Asia Tour (LST) in an attempt to increase competitiveness among teams in the region but is it really enough to save the region? Will combining two specific regions into one pool be the best move to promote competitiveness or is there a better way about it?
The PCS seems to be Riot’s attempt at consolidating all of the Garena regions into one single league again with the exception of Vietnam which has its own league, the VCS. Before the PCS the LST, VCS and LMS were all part of one league called the Garena Premier League (GPL) and the reason the LMS was created in the first place were because Taiwanese teams would dominate the tournament and always emerge champions thus the decision was made the split the GPL so Southeast Asian teams would have a chance to be represented at Worlds. Ironically the GPL would be replaced with the LST after Vietnam dominated the region to the point they were given their own league. The PCS seems to be a revert to the old days of the GPL except in terms of format and although Riot Games says they want to increase competitiveness in the region they seem to have repeated history as there is no doubt that the former LMS teams will once again dominate the region and Southeast Asian teams will again be left in the dust, unfortunately.
If Riot truly wants to start helping the region the first thing they should do is wrest control away from Garena who has a long history of scandals against players and is known for their horrible player support and even encouraging gambling with their in-game events. Should Riot fail to gain ownership of the region the least they could do is start actively push for change in the region, give us Riot API, give us a normal draft and give us Clash. In the recent global Clash beta test Garena regions were excluded entirely, how does Riot expect to increase competitiveness in the region if players here arent even given access to the inbuilt competitive mode within the client and how will players improve if they cannot have access to their player data, their statistics. Without all these base-level details, it will be very difficult for pros or those aspiring to become pro to pinpoint their mistakes especially those minute yet important details that makes a huge difference in the highest level of play.
Back when League was first starting out, desperate calls made by the European player base to fix the state of the server were heard by Riot which eventually lead to the creation of an official Riot hosted server for EU players. If Riot heard the players back then why can’t they hear us now? Unless Riot finally steps in to improve the state of the Garena servers the PCS is going to end up like the LCS minus the retirement fund. Let’s continue to understand what will happen to the future of League of Legends for this region in the upcoming year. This should be interesting.
