2020 Worlds has shown that NA has undiscovered talent while being the most disappointing major region.
NA underperforming in Worlds is a very common scenario if you are a North American League of Legends fans. If you have been keeping up with NA the past couple of years then you would know that NA rarely makes it out of the group stage. It has become kind of a meme online about “Doublelift” not making it past the group the stage. But this scenario is also true for other NA teams as well.
Other than C9, no other organization has made it past this hurdle in recent years. NA’s most recent success is from MSI 2019 where TL made it to the finals by defeating IG. This would prove to be a fluke as TL would eventually lose to IG in the group stage of 2019 Worlds. It seems that NA is not the dominant region as people thought it was.
Despite all this, there is still hope for future players to guide NA to glory.
NA’s future talent
NA has had an influx of few talents compared to other major regions. Out of all of them, TL Academy AD carry Tactical has had the most success.
His story begins after being subbed in at Week 6 into the LCS mainstage. Doublelift was struggling to perform so Edward ‘Tactical’ Ra was replaced in his place. He had an impossible task to perform as TL’s standings were abysmal and they placed 9th in the regular-season standings. Despite TL’s bad performance, TL’s bot lane was its bastion of hope.
In the Summer split, TL finally announced that Tactical will have the starting position. Throughout the entire split, Tactical performed amazingly. It seemed that having a veteran presence ‘CoreJJ’ in the bot lane has helped Tactical a lot to develop as a player. TL ended their Summer split group stage by placing 1st in the standings with the help of their rookie AD carry. Even though TL eventually lost to Flyquest in the semifinals, TL was set for success in the Worlds stage. He even scored himself a Rookie of the year award by LCS.
Play-ins performance
Fast forward to Worlds play-ins stage, Tactical yet again performed and helped his team secure the first seed in Group A of play-ins. TL progressed to the group stage by being placed in Group A of the group stage along with Machi esports, G2 esports, and Suning.
Group stage performance
This group would prove to be much harder than expected as Machi esports snag a win from TL in their first match. After a series of disappointing matches, TL finally picks up a win against G2 Esports. In that match, TL played exceptionally well. After Tactical picked up the First blood against Perkz, the bot lane snowballed the game out of control and into a victory for TL.
This was quite the upset win as G2 Esports was dubbed the strongest Western team in the tournament. However, on Day 5 of the group stage, TL suffered a crushing defeat against G2 Esports. TL manages to get another upset win against Suning while Tactical manages to get 10 kills. Sadly TL’s hope for a tiebreaker relied on G2 Esports winning against Suning. In this high stakes match, G2 lost to Suning knocking TL out of the tournament
Although TL failed to get out of the group stage, Tactical succeeded to win the hearts of many Western fans. Hopefully, he will develop to be the best North American AD carry with the help of ‘CoreJJ’.
