LCS analyst Emily Rand has spoken about her previous passion for Call of Duty and COD esports, and revealed the one thing she thinks League of Legends could learn from the first-person shooter.
League of Legends is right up there with Counter-Strike as one of the greatest esports in the world, with a very solid infrastructure and huge viewership.
That said, that doesn’t mean it’s perfect by any stretch, and fans have a number of ideas of how things could be improved, whether it’s best of threes over best of ones or more international tournaments.
LCS analyst Rand, however, thinks that one way to make the league more exciting isn’t in a structural change or something that Riot could do, but instead comes from the players and the community.
“This doesn’t apply to every region but like … It is so fun to be at a COD event,” she explained to LoL esports content creator David Sjaznuk. “There’s beef upon beef, that can go back years and years between players that really want to beat each other.
“I know we do have that in League, but we rarely get that side of players being open and honest about it. I think part of the reason is a lot of times, you get shouted down on social media because there isn’t that same expectation from the League fan community.
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“But it’s actually so much fun to see COD players just yelling at each other, yelling at fans in the audience, fans yelling back… It’s a really cool, organic way that people are participating in sport. It’s the most traditional sports vibe that I’ve ever had is at COD events.”
Quoted sections of the video begin at the 10:10 minute mark.
Rand explained that she doesn’t believe League of Legends needs to be like traditional sports, but that Call of Duty is great for having the engaged crowd aspect of it. She added that CBLoL — the top-level Brazilian league — does have that kind of atmosphere too.
She went on to make her pick for the winner of the Call of Duty Championship in July. Despite not watching the current Call of Duty League season, she took a look at the rosters and hazarded a guess that OpTic Texas would bring home the trophy, admitting that she “wants to root for Kenny.”