This year's Play-Ins stage is sure to entertain with the crop of high-potential teams present. However, many of these teams and players are foreign to international audiences. After all, who has the time to watch every single major and minor region's games? The following article is designed to give a brief introduction to each of the teams alongside a few key ideas about them and their players. Play-ins Teams For those who don't know, the World Championship is divided into 2 stages, Play-In and Main Event. The Play-In stage features 8 teams: Champions from minor regions, plus second seeds from Vietnam and Southeast Asia, and third seeds from North America and Europe. They compete for 4 available spots in the Main Event. The Play-In teams are further divided into 2 pools; Pool 1 features the #3 seeds from NA and EU, as well as the champions from Southeast Asia and Vietnam. Pool 2 features the #2 seeds from Vietnam and Southeast Asia as well as the champions from Latin...
Fans keeping a close eye on the LCS Global Contract Database will have noticed that earlier today FlyQuest signed mid laner Song "Quad" Su-hyeong to a 3 year contract. Jensen fans need not worry, as according to Sheep Esports' LCS Eevee, this signing is for their Challengers roster. In an interesting turn of events, Team Liquid announced their Challengers roster on X earlier today as well, featuring mid laner Jo "Roamer" Woo-jin. The global contract database reveals that he is on a 2 year contract with TL. Many North American fans are understandably apprehensive about importing foreign talent instead of developing native players. Over the years we've seen many players on the sunset of their careers come to the LCS and perform rather poorly before retiring soon after. It's clear that this year teams haven't stopped importing entirely, but are adopting a different approach. In 2023, both TL and FLY are running rosters with only 1 non-re...