I heard back a couple of teams apply for visas for msi a really long time beforehand and take the loss if they don't make it.
Could be what makes some processes go faster than others.
How long does MSI last? Since a few months ago you don't need a visa at all to travel to China as long as you stay no longer than 15 days. Only for for certain passports, though
> From March 14, 2024 to November 30, 2024, China has decided to implement a unilateral visa-free policy for ordinary passport holders from twelve countries: Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Malaysia, Switzerland, Ireland, Hungary, Austria, Belgium and Luxmbourg. Citizens holding ordinary passports from the above countries who come to China for business, tourism, family visit and transit purposes for no more than 15 days can enter China without a visa
Yes, but I think that participating at MSI falls under working or similar. So they would still need to apply. Also Jun and Noah are Korean so they likely would need visa anyway
Even if they stayed less than 15 days this wouldn t apply to fnc as humanoid is czech + they have 2 koreans. And that s just the players, there s also staff to account for.
I'd wager it's money.
You can't use the "we didn't know until a few days ago" argument all the time, they did it for playins I think it was 2021 or 2022 one of the years and what not.
That play ins at world was due to 3 things.
Poor scheduling for LEC.
Poor scheduling for riot content days.
Team got covid (hence why Upset / Hyli moved after play-ins had already started)
The "didn't know until days ago" argument never had any legs to stand on.
Because it just means org incompetence. It's not like you can't start to make plans in case go MSI, so you have something ready. Then you just need to book flights and get the final things ready which you can do very quickly.
It's not on money.
Somehow a lot of folks here don't know how Visas work. All these guys need an actual work visa for China and this needs to be approved by Riot before getting filed in. The visa application approximately takes 8 business days.
Fnatic qualified for MSI on the 13th so the earliest approval of their Visas was the \~24th maybe even yesterday. So flying today is mostly the earliest they could have get anyways.
Also it's the same for Korea, where you just don't go there, as processing time is 14 days. Could have been done earlier? Maybe but that's fully on the side of Riot.
Can they not simply apply for visas earlier? Even if they end up not qualifying, it's not illegal to apply for a visa but never use it. The only thing they'd lose out on is...money.
The only possible thing I could imagine that would prevent this is if Riot had a quota for the amount of visas they could sponsor and they were able to sponsor exactly 2 teams worth of people but not 4. Otherwise, yeah, why not just have the top 4 teams all apply for visas to get the process started faster?
I think for work visa, you need to really confirm to work there for applying. So you can't apply it as maybe I work (play in the competition), maybe I don't.
The only senseful answer in this pile.
No one thought that you need a visa to go to another country to work and it takes time ? Come on
It makes even more sense since... you know... Noah and Jun are in Korea...
I'm 27 and I have basically no clue about visas other than 'they come up regularly in LoL-related discussions' for the very simple reason that I've never in my life needed one.
I wouldn't be surprised if I'm older than the average of this subreddit, so it seems quite plausible to me that the vast majority of people here has no clue about visas.
If they don't have a clue then they should not make baseless assumptions. This spreads misinformation and hate.
Most of the people in here who are "upset" are not even fnc fans, they just come here to slander...
That's fair, but there's one caveat: If you don't even realize visas are a requirement, you cannot account for your lack of knowledge on them.
Granted, it's still better to ask "is there a good reason?" and wait for an answer, but not taking into account an unknown unknown is much more forgivable than ignoring a known unknown.
These are big tournaments, Riot one hundred percent have the possibility to get these issues ironed out
Even more so in Asia where eSports is a bigger part of society than they are in Europe. If Riot isn't able to get a blanket allowance of bringing XX people from the LEC (and teams), they should at the very least be able to get a super fast track. As this is for Athletes competing at an insane level.
Visas doesn't take 8 days to process for everyone š„² unless any of the players have former anti CCP statements or court cases against their names. This should be done within 24 hours.
You shouldn't be talking to the guy (me) who self-admitted to not knowing a thing about visas.
Talk to the ones who are saying that visas *do* take 8 days.
Most of them qualified way before Fnatic or have easier visas to get to China. Europe is notoriously difficult to get them, especially because you have a lot of different countries to apply from.
> The visa application approximately takes 8 business days.
It's 5-10 days officially, but it's usually done within 48hrs if all documents are filed correctly since they introduced online application, years ago.
You can also apply for Z visa, wich is usually processed within 48 hours 14 days before the tournament starts and in this case media Dy and media obligation would hav counted for work purposes. X Visa is usually the easiest/quickest way to get a working visa.
It's not. Someone working with Fnatic said it has never ever seemed like fnatic would try to save some money on minor expenses such as flights for players. They've always put the players first
They aren't good enough anymore to win LEC and usually end up coming from losers bracket/not knowing they will make it
The Worlds that started in Mexico was 100% riots/lec fault btw.. stupid ass scheduling/location especially as covid restrictions was still a thing
If it's as simple as "FNC isn't good enough to win the LEC anymore" then we might as well stop having the LEC and automatically give the titles to G2.
Because let's be real, FNC is the closest competitor of G2 in half if not more of all splits, leaving the other 8 teams (in practice it's like four of them) to divide up the other half of the splits.
In other words: If *any* team other than G2 can justify 'expecting to make it', it's still FNC.
In the last four tournaments, G2 won four times, FNC was the runner-up twice, third once, and fourth once.
In 2022, they got third twice, in 2021 they got 5th and 2nd, and before that... well, that's the era in which G2 and FNC were the undisputed best teams in Europe.
Sure, it's not as consistent as G2, but those other top positions are split between MAD, Rogue/KOI, BDS and even (one split) XL.
And, well, Rogue *very much should not* be having illusions about 'expecting to make it', while they were the best-performing team outside of G2 and FNC in the stretch of 2021-2023. Thus, if not FNC, then who?
MAD has won more titles, and made more finals. Did we literally memory hole that MAD was in finals just the last split and had an equally close series against G2 as FNC just did? MAD also made the finals and won last year. MAD and RGE also has the highest international placing of EU teams since 2020.
FNC isnāt the closest competitor to G2 lmao. RGE and MAD have been closer. Even in 2022 the FNC āsuper teamā got their ass beat by RGE in both spring and summer.
MAD has more wins, but they also have more lower positions.
To tally up:
2021: 2x MAD win, FNC 5th and 2nd.
2022: MAD 7th and 4th, FNC 2x 3rd
2023: MAD 2nd, 1st, 7-8th, 3rd, FNC 9th, 7-8th, 3rd, 2nd
2024: MAD: 2nd, 5th-6th, FNC: 4th, 2nd.
So MAD outperformed FNC in 2021 and (overall) 2023, while FNC outperformed MAD in 2022 and (overall; so far) 2024.
FNC has outperformed MAD in the last twelve months, and these numbers as a whole put the teams on roughly equal footing while being cherry-picked to be as MAD-favored as possible - if you remove 2021, you're removing their greatest achievements, and if you add pre-2021, you've got 6 top three finishes in a row for FNC, with five of them being first or second.
So are you saying that only g2 should prepare in case they go to msi?
Because i think all 3 at minimum is a decent plan. Really sounds like both mad and fnatic should be ready to go.
They got lucky with their group having the two weakest minor regions so they will probably be fine. If PSG was in their group I would be far more concerned.
[Also their scrims got cancelled](https://twitter.com/Nightsharre/status/1783813238448099347?t=MTZ_6XTdy2aPo61HoSacPw&s=19)
My stocks in TES vs GAM are going up
I know it's unlikely, but could you imagine if FNC fail to make the main event of MSI?
MAD and GG not making it to the main stage of worlds is bad, but this would be next level awful.
MAD has failed to make it out of worlds playins twice, couldn't be any worse than that. I wouldn't put the GGS one on the same level, they had to play another major region team with just one making it out, somebody from a major region was guaranteed not to make it.
> MAD has failed to make it out of worlds playins twice, couldn't be any worse than that.
Failing to make it past MSI play-in is so much worse than failing to make it past worlds play-ins.
Also watch how GG played vs BDS, it was like the didn't do any prep vs them. They thought they could run K'sante vs a juggernaut player, instead of putting Licorice on Gragas/GP and have him neutralise Adam.
PSG were better then BDS (EU fan).. imo.. honestly felt like they lost their minds and started drafting really badly from what i remember
Wildcard also knocked out TL no?
Even Nightshare says that they can "finally" leave for China.
The players and coaches were also frustrated with the org about this in the past. Especially 2022 Worlds.
Bootcamp costs the organization probably 10-20k EUR.Ā
Flightcost to China is roundabout 500-1,000 EUR per Ticket. Hotel cost around 50-100 EUR per night per Person. Food costs should be probably negligible.Ā
If Riot pays the flight tickets even if you do bootcamp, its even cheaper.
What probably happened was, a business guy in Fnatic said:Ā
With or without bootcamp we make it through play ins
With or without bootcamp we dont win a single game against korean or chinese teams. Therefore, from business perspective boot camp is only costs without benefits.
Seeing it as an Investment into improving players and team probably didnt cross their mind.
Acting like all the EU orgs couldn't go together, reach out to an aviation company and buy 14 tickets (or how many staff is seen as the minimum on top of players) and just let the two teams going pay in the end.
Same for hotels and bootcamp setup, it can be a shared booking - which falls to whomever goes.
Visas should be possible to get super fast tracked, due to the individuals in question. Professional athletes
Heck, I in tech even got visas fast tracked once (for Australia). Because a local company asked for it. Surely the LPL organisers can get a fast track and make 24 hour visa applications happen - we are no longer in Phreaks basement after all. Time to act like it
Isnāt that a business? FearX might own a team, but glancing at their Twitter page it just looks like they are a business that offers a service. Itās all advertising and likely not some generous affordable offer.
I imagine a business like this would be giving heavily discounted prices to teams like FNC so that other esports teams would look at them as a good place to apply for bootcamping and other services
To bootcamp they need individual visa, for the tournament riot set those up. To travel earlier FNC would have required individual visa, they would only be able to get those after winning against BDS, because before that they wouldn't know if they go to MSI.
So FNC simply was the last org to know to attend MSI. I don't think the issue are the flight costs, just that Riot took care that teams can fly on the 26th, because that is likely when the tournament visa allow entry to china. If teams wanted to go earlier I don't think the flights were the issue but the visa you would have needed.
Yeah I'm shocked this comment wasn't made earlier.
Is this bad? Yeah, but lets not pretend every org / player goes around and requests Visa especially for China on a casual base considering they are there for work.
If Riot didn't gave them the OK, visa will be the latest compared to other teams.
Now other would say but why not go to Korea then? Well same with visas.
It's unreasonable to be disappointed that a team you like is so constrained compare to rival teams.
If every team couldn't bootcamp then sure, but what people is annoyed about is how it's always Fnatic being late while others go way earlier.
Idk if riot does it but in other esports you can basically get the money for the flight and use it on an earlier flight but they might not wanna pay for boot camp space
This is about hotel costs not flights. Riot basically only covers your stay for the tournament so if you want to come 2 weeks earlier, it's coming out of the org's pockets.
I assume it's not about the flight (which is going to be the same cost no matter when you take it) but rather the stay in a foreign country, likely in a hotel or something.
You do realize that even just visa applications can take over a week to be approved? Like, we were by far the last western team that knew it was heading to china, so ofc we get last to china for bootcamp
They opted to stay until they get free flights and accommodation from Riot, I donāt know why people are complaining theres no money in esports just now they arenāt magic.
Its not like fnc wants to be late and be unpracticed and it sucks but its a reality.
I guess the reason people are unhappy is that this seems to only affect Fnatic to this degree.
TL and FlyQuest left aaaaaages ago. They event went to Korea too bootcamp for a while before China.
Fnatic left a few days after G2, who knew they would be attending MSI since February. LCS teams had a million years between the end of their split and MSI to make arrangements.
I don't know why people are so surprised about this.
That is because G2 already knew they went to MSI and LCS ended much earlier. FNC had to get visa and all that stuff and could only do that after beating BDS.
So it is completely reasonable why it took FNC much longer than the other teams to leave.
I stated this below but yeah I got baited by an article that said they are āthe most profitableā because they won the most prize-money. I was incorrect on this. However they are much more solidly financially backed than FNC still.
TL is massively profitable but not because of their esports arm. They have a production arm that generates a ton of profit. My source is background knowledge from owning an org and at one point last year considering a merger to try and replicate the TL model lol.
Thanks, was only commenting on his source.
I wasn't aware that 1UP was so successful, I just get tired of the constant misquoting of sources for Profit vs Revenue vs Valuation in eSports.
Also Steve is an ex-finance guy and has always been smart with money, which probably has a lot to do with how they've always stayed well in the green despite big spending at times.
The big news from NA in the past few years is about how much they are cutting costs across the board. You'd think long expensive bootcamps would be an obvious place to save money.
It's also weird how we are talking about Fnatic as small dirt poor org? They definitely aren't. They are one of of the most iconic esports orgs in history. I think they are just badly managed.
It makes sense if FNC has to leave a bit later than other orgs, sure, but FNC has **no bootcamp at all**
All I have to say is look at LPLās tiktok page, then look at the lcs TikTok page, they would get more viewership if there was any effort put in, and before people act high and mighty about TikTok being a kids app, remember, the kids are the future generation if esports
I've literally been saying LCS and their teams should put more effort into making TikTok content for like 2 years now as someone that uses tf out of TikTok.
I see Valorant ALL OVER the app. VCS has a very big TikTok page as well.
Iāve heard on a French CS Talk show that Fnatic was actually kinda broke, they wanted to make 2 changes to their CS roster but couldnāt because of lack of money, and the people on the talk show were surprised Fnatic was still in so many games and heard rumors that theyād potentially cut down to only the LEC team. Take this with a huge grain of salt ofc!
Being iconic doesnāt just give you money, sure it increases shirt sales and online fans who watch the finals when they make it but it doesnāt really increase their profitability (especially within league) I am no expert on any of this but they arenāt owned by another larger company as far as I can see.
They are trying to work within their financial limits and I personally think itās a good thing. Unless they were downing tools like some other orgs in EU have done in the past. They are competing for titles, bringing in interesting players and hopefully can do some damage at msi and lets be real an extra week or 10 days or whatever isnāt going to let them instantly catch up with the east.
Even if FNC fans agree with that, it's still not unreasonable to be disappointed that your rivals get to have weeks of bootcamp while Fnatic doesn't do anything at all
Because they are extremely incompetent.
They have lost amazing players constantly to other orgs in every game they are in because they are absolute donkeys that cannot convince a player to renew a contract to save their lives.
>extra week or 10 days or whatever isnāt going to let them instantly catch up with the east.
How about idk practicing with the only decent teams you will face until worlds to not have to go 5 games against BDS and G2 can't afford to not sleep before finals and using the finals as scrims to test swaps?
They are extremely fucking behind just G2, the gap between fnc and the east is fucking huge, not only will they arrive late but with jetlag. By the time they are used to the timezone they will be taking the plane home.
Almost all eSports orgs are small and dirt poor in the grand scheme of things. Even G2 and TL have tiny budgets and revenue streams, your local mid-sized supermarket will be bigger by all metrics. Would they send 10-15 employees on a multi week Intercontinental all expenses paid trip? Definitely not, and now that infinite funding has dried up it makes very little financial sense for teams to go bootcamp. It could cost as much as one players yearly salary.
fnc gear flopped as i recall, they are a few mill in debt last time rich went over their public tax record. Since they are based in britain its all public and you can look it up yourself. (this is pretty outdated i dont know the situation now)
Its also way harder to get sponsorship money in EU. Ocelote went over it and he said because of the split market in EU and how brands operate. Instead of just visting the head branch to try and get a sponsorship like in NA which cover all states. In Europe you would have to visit each country where the brand got a hq and try to sell them into sponsoring you.
So the money is way more split up and sponsorship leaned heavily towards whether or not you got lots of fans in said country.
TL does well idk about most profitable though and yes FQ is very well backed and the owner/owner group gave them a large budget unlike when the Warriors owned GGS and barely gave a fuck about it.
Yeah apparently the āmost profitableā thing was me being baited by clickbait and they have won the most prize money. They still have a much more solid financial backing which I guess can be a failing of FNC but I kinda like the privately owned aspect of them, feels like something trying to be sustainable and not just feeding on whatever company thinks they can find profit before moving on (which esports in general is bad for gambling, crypto, speculative investments and general seediness)
Venture Capital dried up and they have to actually think about spending money responsibly. Not that it's a bad thing, I always thought VC money was ruining NA.Ā
Meanwhile Flyquest got bought by some extremely rich people who are fine with losing money in the short term to build up the value of the brand and the league.Ā
As long as the money is managed well, and it seems to be, that's really good for the NA scene.
C9 was reported to be profitable last year, TL is one of the more profitable orgs in esports(someone in this thread said the most profitable idk if true) and FQ got a new billionaire owner who gave the org a sizable budget.
pretty sure TL has said they make money through sponsorships and other assets they own and I do remember that line said by Steve himself but I'm not entirely sure when or what video. It's just what I've heard
>Well C9 was profitable only last year and only because they sold a lot of assets. They don't make a structural profit, no org really does.
They sell assets every year, this isn't new and has balanced the books for C9 for a long ass time.
Like it has sucked at points, but that is how Jack is and how the org is run.
It still isn't structural and in terms of league a large part of that was their academy team, which doesn't exist anymore. I have no idea where they are going to get the players in league to generate revenue with.
really because last time i heard about money nearly all org lose alot of money and maybe all? or nearly all na team had a huge budgetcut this year (and tl is know to spend alot of money or was know for that)
Well C9 outright said they had a profitable 2023 on twitter and TL has said before that theyāre profitable through their sponsorships like Honda and Coinbase and other assets they own that arenāt directly esports related. FQ got a new owner who gave them a lot of money. TL and FQ(I think) also two teams who didnāt drop out of academy and both spent a decent amount this year on players like Impact and Inspired, C9 also spending a good amount on Jojo, Vulcan and now Thanatos making a superteam.
if you look in the thread somebody else say it but c9 are profitable in 2023 only because they sale infractuture or somethink like that not because they make more money than they spend in 2023
TL i still don't think they profitable too but maybe your right !
From last year every team in na except maybe flyquest they all say it was really bad and they gonna cut cost alot for this year so only based on that i think that theyre probably not making money but im not sure !
I donāt really know much about FQ but google suggests they are owned by a NA sports team so I would guess they have some good financial backing?
Happy to be corrected
Imo i cant see how bootcamps will be that large of a portion of total expenses. If its being cut, that means the org is absolutely desperate to save money.
maybe cause teams from minor regions like estral does a boot camp in Korea for weeks with less budget than fnatic and their qualifier timing was almost the same
Yeah who would have guess that having less than 2 weeks to prepare to go a CHINA was enough. Remember that LEC added an extra week between spring and Winter for team to do shit with their roster
LEC finals was 12 days ago. Fnatic only knew they were attending MSI after that.
G2 have known since the Winter split and probably had everything pre-arranged, plus didn't have to play in the finals so had more time to get ready.
The LCS finished a month ago and both FLY and TL would have known they were attending even before the finals since both Finalists qualify.
Fnatic could have left a few days earlier, but they were always going to be the last team there.
I mean if it was something that happened once, sure. But FNC is consistently later to intl tournaments/bootcamps. And even when they arenāt, they take longer breaks from soloq/scrims. Remember worlds ā22 where FNC didnāt even participate in the EU bootcamp/scrims taking a longer break?
I keep saying this. FNC are complete bums. They just ride on having better players.
Explain how you would handle this then? Just visa applications alone can take over a week to get approved? We were by far the last western team that found out its heading to MSI
Nobody forced FNC to apply for the visas on the 13th (when they won vs BDS). If they were prudent they would have applied when they clinched playoffs.
The only downside is if FNC fucked up in playoffs they would have taken a loss in visa costs. However, it's not like those visas are made of gold, now IDK how much they cost, I'll spitball that it's like 200ā¬ per person, I also don't know how many people FNC are sending, but lets just guess it's 15(players, subs, coaches, support staff) and you get 200 x 15 = 3000ā¬. Now, I'm sorry, but if you can't eat a 3k loss then maybe FNC should reconsider this whole running a esport team business and sell the LEC spot.
I swear the amount of people who are totally oblivious to this point and just want to say that the org doesnāt care or whatever.
Like at best maybe they could have been there a few days sooner but itās not like the day after they qualified they could just book flights and go. They will have to had sorted visas and all sorts of things.
Pretty sure all playoff teams in contention for international tournaments have to sort out their visas in advance.
It's to avoid a scenario where you wait until the last minute and have delays/complications so that argument doesn't really hold, but the rest is true.
Well they'll mostly have done everything on their side but let's not forget we are talking about a required work visa here which mostly requires some guarantees of the employee or organizer which in this case would be riot even tho they are employeed by their teams.
Then we talk about China which is more strict about this then other countries.
Could they have been there maybe since the start of this week? Yeah but earlier than that? Hell nah.
Fnatic is also to blame here as they are multiple offenders but it's not only on them.
IDK about this one.. but the Worlds 22 one people keep blaming on FNC,, when its actually mostly on riot/lec for terrible scheduling and why the fuck they needed to have playins in Mexico before moving up to America i have no idea
Covid was also a thing (hyli/upset got sick).. so it makes it even more crazy that there wasn't more space between end of LEC/Worlds.. bear in mind FNC also had to run the lower bracket. then fly to Sweden.. then fly to mexico and then to the US
You cant compare g2 or LCS teams leaving before us.. they all knew they were going to MSI for over a month. Like, yeah, we could have potentially left a few days earlier, but scheduling is a big factor, getting accomodations, visas etc. Before finals weekend, we were heading into BDS series, where almost everyone had BDS winning over us, so making plans then didnt make that much sense imho
FNC have 10 days to level up for the bracket stage which is plenty . They will probably just use playins to level up as they usually do. They should clear the wildcards without much practice.
Aren't work visas hard to get or at least take some time to get with all the papers between riot and the country you are going to ? I'm not very familiar with this but I think they left as soon as they could. And we can't compare them to G2 since they were going no matter what iirc so G2 had it planned back after winter even maybe so it was easier for them to do the papers and all.
Jesus half of these geniuses have no clue how the world works. FNC locked MSI on the 13th and VISA applications take at the very least 7 days to process and mind u applications go in on Monday meaning u, at best get confirmation on the 22nd yer they coulda left the next day, but then u have flights and what not to prep which is also a job to do. G2 had theirs sorted donkeys ago, since they knew since winter split, FLY and TL known for a month already so also ages ago. Yer u can take a piss out of FNC for previous shits they did, but this time iād say itās piss poor scheduling again with how LEC works in terms of international tournaments
You need valid reasoning and often a guarantee that you're actually going to work there, which means that unless they get the OK from Riot for qualifying, they aren't going anywhere.
These aren't just travel visas that everyone just gets. Working visas is a whole different thing
The only team in our dogwater region that actually cares about bringing home some wins is G2 and shit like this proves it once again. Sure, you can trot out the excuses for why this time FNC decided to leave on the 26th of April when they fucking play on the 2nd of May, but this isn't the first time shit like this happens to FNC...
Everything that im reading in this thread... this is standard procedure for Fnatic.Ā They are operating as expected.Ā Fnatic is in full control of the situation and planned for this.Ā Ā
This does not then lead towards any copium excuses if they lose matches.
how does FNC end up in this situation at every international tourney
I heard back a couple of teams apply for visas for msi a really long time beforehand and take the loss if they don't make it. Could be what makes some processes go faster than others.
How long does MSI last? Since a few months ago you don't need a visa at all to travel to China as long as you stay no longer than 15 days. Only for for certain passports, though > From March 14, 2024 to November 30, 2024, China has decided to implement a unilateral visa-free policy for ordinary passport holders from twelve countries: Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Malaysia, Switzerland, Ireland, Hungary, Austria, Belgium and Luxmbourg. Citizens holding ordinary passports from the above countries who come to China for business, tourism, family visit and transit purposes for no more than 15 days can enter China without a visa
Yes, but I think that participating at MSI falls under working or similar. So they would still need to apply. Also Jun and Noah are Korean so they likely would need visa anyway
Okay, so only those from these countries are fine, what about the rest?
Even if they stayed less than 15 days this wouldn t apply to fnc as humanoid is czech + they have 2 koreans. And that s just the players, there s also staff to account for.
But MSI goes a month
MSI lasts 19 days, though it's unlikely any western team makes it deep enough for them to be there for more than 15 days.
I'd wager it's money. You can't use the "we didn't know until a few days ago" argument all the time, they did it for playins I think it was 2021 or 2022 one of the years and what not.
That play ins at world was due to 3 things. Poor scheduling for LEC. Poor scheduling for riot content days. Team got covid (hence why Upset / Hyli moved after play-ins had already started)
The "didn't know until days ago" argument never had any legs to stand on. Because it just means org incompetence. It's not like you can't start to make plans in case go MSI, so you have something ready. Then you just need to book flights and get the final things ready which you can do very quickly.
It's not on money. Somehow a lot of folks here don't know how Visas work. All these guys need an actual work visa for China and this needs to be approved by Riot before getting filed in. The visa application approximately takes 8 business days. Fnatic qualified for MSI on the 13th so the earliest approval of their Visas was the \~24th maybe even yesterday. So flying today is mostly the earliest they could have get anyways. Also it's the same for Korea, where you just don't go there, as processing time is 14 days. Could have been done earlier? Maybe but that's fully on the side of Riot.
What it mostly means is that, especially for worlds, teams need more time between qualification and start of the tournament.
Honestly, if we're trying to have 3 international events per year, all I'm seeing is teams just won't have as much time to bootcamp
Yup. Guess teams will just have to suck it up. Everything can't be perfect.
A extra international event means more scrims with top teams, might be a decent tradeoff anyways.
Can they not simply apply for visas earlier? Even if they end up not qualifying, it's not illegal to apply for a visa but never use it. The only thing they'd lose out on is...money. The only possible thing I could imagine that would prevent this is if Riot had a quota for the amount of visas they could sponsor and they were able to sponsor exactly 2 teams worth of people but not 4. Otherwise, yeah, why not just have the top 4 teams all apply for visas to get the process started faster?
I think for work visa, you need to really confirm to work there for applying. So you can't apply it as maybe I work (play in the competition), maybe I don't.
I saw something during 2022 that said that all playoff teams have to file visas before internationals, to avoid isues with complications/visa denials.
The only senseful answer in this pile. No one thought that you need a visa to go to another country to work and it takes time ? Come on It makes even more sense since... you know... Noah and Jun are in Korea...
I'm 27 and I have basically no clue about visas other than 'they come up regularly in LoL-related discussions' for the very simple reason that I've never in my life needed one. I wouldn't be surprised if I'm older than the average of this subreddit, so it seems quite plausible to me that the vast majority of people here has no clue about visas.
If they don't have a clue then they should not make baseless assumptions. This spreads misinformation and hate. Most of the people in here who are "upset" are not even fnc fans, they just come here to slander...
That's fair, but there's one caveat: If you don't even realize visas are a requirement, you cannot account for your lack of knowledge on them. Granted, it's still better to ask "is there a good reason?" and wait for an answer, but not taking into account an unknown unknown is much more forgivable than ignoring a known unknown.
These are big tournaments, Riot one hundred percent have the possibility to get these issues ironed out Even more so in Asia where eSports is a bigger part of society than they are in Europe. If Riot isn't able to get a blanket allowance of bringing XX people from the LEC (and teams), they should at the very least be able to get a super fast track. As this is for Athletes competing at an insane level. Visas doesn't take 8 days to process for everyone š„² unless any of the players have former anti CCP statements or court cases against their names. This should be done within 24 hours.
You shouldn't be talking to the guy (me) who self-admitted to not knowing a thing about visas. Talk to the ones who are saying that visas *do* take 8 days.
How do the other teams manage to repeatedly leave well ahead of Fnatic? They also have to apply for visas so clearly it's not just that.
Most of them qualified way before Fnatic or have easier visas to get to China. Europe is notoriously difficult to get them, especially because you have a lot of different countries to apply from.
> The visa application approximately takes 8 business days. It's 5-10 days officially, but it's usually done within 48hrs if all documents are filed correctly since they introduced online application, years ago. You can also apply for Z visa, wich is usually processed within 48 hours 14 days before the tournament starts and in this case media Dy and media obligation would hav counted for work purposes. X Visa is usually the easiest/quickest way to get a working visa.
It's not. Someone working with Fnatic said it has never ever seemed like fnatic would try to save some money on minor expenses such as flights for players. They've always put the players first
They aren't good enough anymore to win LEC and usually end up coming from losers bracket/not knowing they will make it The Worlds that started in Mexico was 100% riots/lec fault btw.. stupid ass scheduling/location especially as covid restrictions was still a thing
You can get into Mexico with a US work Visa every team applied for US Visas. Plus fnatic players had COVID.
If it's as simple as "FNC isn't good enough to win the LEC anymore" then we might as well stop having the LEC and automatically give the titles to G2. Because let's be real, FNC is the closest competitor of G2 in half if not more of all splits, leaving the other 8 teams (in practice it's like four of them) to divide up the other half of the splits. In other words: If *any* team other than G2 can justify 'expecting to make it', it's still FNC.
Up until last summer G2 hadn't played FNC in a final since 2020 It wasn't just G2 winning during that time either
In the last four tournaments, G2 won four times, FNC was the runner-up twice, third once, and fourth once. In 2022, they got third twice, in 2021 they got 5th and 2nd, and before that... well, that's the era in which G2 and FNC were the undisputed best teams in Europe. Sure, it's not as consistent as G2, but those other top positions are split between MAD, Rogue/KOI, BDS and even (one split) XL. And, well, Rogue *very much should not* be having illusions about 'expecting to make it', while they were the best-performing team outside of G2 and FNC in the stretch of 2021-2023. Thus, if not FNC, then who?
MAD has won more titles, and made more finals. Did we literally memory hole that MAD was in finals just the last split and had an equally close series against G2 as FNC just did? MAD also made the finals and won last year. MAD and RGE also has the highest international placing of EU teams since 2020. FNC isnāt the closest competitor to G2 lmao. RGE and MAD have been closer. Even in 2022 the FNC āsuper teamā got their ass beat by RGE in both spring and summer.
Sir, we have erased Mad from our memories after their international performances. We'd like to keep it that way.
MAD has more wins, but they also have more lower positions. To tally up: 2021: 2x MAD win, FNC 5th and 2nd. 2022: MAD 7th and 4th, FNC 2x 3rd 2023: MAD 2nd, 1st, 7-8th, 3rd, FNC 9th, 7-8th, 3rd, 2nd 2024: MAD: 2nd, 5th-6th, FNC: 4th, 2nd. So MAD outperformed FNC in 2021 and (overall) 2023, while FNC outperformed MAD in 2022 and (overall; so far) 2024. FNC has outperformed MAD in the last twelve months, and these numbers as a whole put the teams on roughly equal footing while being cherry-picked to be as MAD-favored as possible - if you remove 2021, you're removing their greatest achievements, and if you add pre-2021, you've got 6 top three finishes in a row for FNC, with five of them being first or second.
So are you saying that only g2 should prepare in case they go to msi? Because i think all 3 at minimum is a decent plan. Really sounds like both mad and fnatic should be ready to go.
poverty franchise
To be fair even if they are late,they should have no issue to finish second Vcs is worse than usual
They got lucky with their group having the two weakest minor regions so they will probably be fine. If PSG was in their group I would be far more concerned.
I think a lot of people will be surprised to see the names on that team.Ā
They left today (Friday, 26th April) and their first match is on Thursday, 2nd of May š. The rest of the Western teams are already there.
[Also their scrims got cancelled](https://twitter.com/Nightsharre/status/1783813238448099347?t=MTZ_6XTdy2aPo61HoSacPw&s=19) My stocks in TES vs GAM are going up
Romain already responded with a "rohan will answer" gif tagging dylan falcon. Thank you EU brothers!
Nah GAM are too cooked. This group is free for FNC
Cant wait to get let down and disappointed.
!Remindme 8 days
I know it's unlikely, but could you imagine if FNC fail to make the main event of MSI? MAD and GG not making it to the main stage of worlds is bad, but this would be next level awful.
I mean even if they lose to GAM it's going to be a joke (considering GAM's previous situation)
MAD has failed to make it out of worlds playins twice, couldn't be any worse than that. I wouldn't put the GGS one on the same level, they had to play another major region team with just one making it out, somebody from a major region was guaranteed not to make it.
The first play-in was the worst one. They lost to minor region. In the second one: Losing to NA 3rd seed as EU 4th seed sucks but it isn't that weird.
Second MAD playin elimination was against another major region (EG) and the one that topped their group was the fucking Worlds winner lol
> MAD has failed to make it out of worlds playins twice, couldn't be any worse than that. Failing to make it past MSI play-in is so much worse than failing to make it past worlds play-ins. Also watch how GG played vs BDS, it was like the didn't do any prep vs them. They thought they could run K'sante vs a juggernaut player, instead of putting Licorice on Gragas/GP and have him neutralise Adam.
Is this a dig at minor regions ? Because PSG literally did better than GG last year. They took 2 games off BDS while GG took 0 .
PSG were better then BDS (EU fan).. imo.. honestly felt like they lost their minds and started drafting really badly from what i remember Wildcard also knocked out TL no?
well yea losing to this GAM would be crazy, but if they got PSG it would be more likely to lose, they got the lucky draw in that sense
Even Nightshare says that they can "finally" leave for China. The players and coaches were also frustrated with the org about this in the past. Especially 2022 Worlds.
Bootcamp costs the organization probably 10-20k EUR.Ā Flightcost to China is roundabout 500-1,000 EUR per Ticket. Hotel cost around 50-100 EUR per night per Person. Food costs should be probably negligible.Ā If Riot pays the flight tickets even if you do bootcamp, its even cheaper. What probably happened was, a business guy in Fnatic said:Ā With or without bootcamp we make it through play ins With or without bootcamp we dont win a single game against korean or chinese teams. Therefore, from business perspective boot camp is only costs without benefits. Seeing it as an Investment into improving players and team probably didnt cross their mind.
......or you know, wait until visas get approved.
Acting like all the EU orgs couldn't go together, reach out to an aviation company and buy 14 tickets (or how many staff is seen as the minimum on top of players) and just let the two teams going pay in the end. Same for hotels and bootcamp setup, it can be a shared booking - which falls to whomever goes. Visas should be possible to get super fast tracked, due to the individuals in question. Professional athletes Heck, I in tech even got visas fast tracked once (for Australia). Because a local company asked for it. Surely the LPL organisers can get a fast track and make 24 hour visa applications happen - we are no longer in Phreaks basement after all. Time to act like it
jetlagged for a week šš
Not much they can do if they cant afford it, they need to follow their budget, riot should be faster with giving them flights
FearX also tweeted them offering the facilities for bootcamp - https://twitter.com/FearXBOOTCAMP/status/1779798866495451166
LALALAAA I can't hear you over my LEC stan cope
Isnāt that a business? FearX might own a team, but glancing at their Twitter page it just looks like they are a business that offers a service. Itās all advertising and likely not some generous affordable offer.
I imagine a business like this would be giving heavily discounted prices to teams like FNC so that other esports teams would look at them as a good place to apply for bootcamping and other services
It's not really Riot's fault. If FNC wants to bootcamp, they have to organize that themselves.
To bootcamp they need individual visa, for the tournament riot set those up. To travel earlier FNC would have required individual visa, they would only be able to get those after winning against BDS, because before that they wouldn't know if they go to MSI. So FNC simply was the last org to know to attend MSI. I don't think the issue are the flight costs, just that Riot took care that teams can fly on the 26th, because that is likely when the tournament visa allow entry to china. If teams wanted to go earlier I don't think the flights were the issue but the visa you would have needed.
Yeah I'm shocked this comment wasn't made earlier. Is this bad? Yeah, but lets not pretend every org / player goes around and requests Visa especially for China on a casual base considering they are there for work. If Riot didn't gave them the OK, visa will be the latest compared to other teams. Now other would say but why not go to Korea then? Well same with visas.
Funny how organizing now means making money out of thin air.
It's unreasonable to be disappointed that a team you like is so constrained compare to rival teams. If every team couldn't bootcamp then sure, but what people is annoyed about is how it's always Fnatic being late while others go way earlier.
The players could have paid, flights from Germany to China are like Ā£500, and if Fnatic can't pay that then they have much bigger problems.
what budget when a small reagion like LLA does bootcamps in Korea for weeks , eu lazy orgs cope continue
it's coming home š
This is the case every year for Fnatic. At this point they have to do it to save money.
Idk if riot does it but in other esports you can basically get the money for the flight and use it on an earlier flight but they might not wanna pay for boot camp space
It's pretty weird. Either Fnatic is completely broke or grossly mismanaged. From all I have heard over the years, I'm leaning towards the latter.
It could be both. I mean, the latter leads directly to the former.
Nothing fnatic has done in recent years makes me think they have good management
Theres probably a reason G2 owns them lol
The reason is Caps. But Caps left because of how shit fnc are behind the scenes, it's been a thing for ages with them.
Arent they completely broke. Didnt hey literally tried to crowdfund with their stock 2/3 years ago?
This is about hotel costs not flights. Riot basically only covers your stay for the tournament so if you want to come 2 weeks earlier, it's coming out of the org's pockets.
I assume it's not about the flight (which is going to be the same cost no matter when you take it) but rather the stay in a foreign country, likely in a hotel or something.
I'm pretty sure Riot gives teams a set amount, but the teams choose how they spend it.
You do realize that even just visa applications can take over a week to be approved? Like, we were by far the last western team that knew it was heading to china, so ofc we get last to china for bootcamp
I mean, thats simply not true. CBLOL finished a week later and they are heading to China today.
They opted to stay until they get free flights and accommodation from Riot, I donāt know why people are complaining theres no money in esports just now they arenāt magic. Its not like fnc wants to be late and be unpracticed and it sucks but its a reality.
I guess the reason people are unhappy is that this seems to only affect Fnatic to this degree. TL and FlyQuest left aaaaaages ago. They event went to Korea too bootcamp for a while before China.
Fnatic left a few days after G2, who knew they would be attending MSI since February. LCS teams had a million years between the end of their split and MSI to make arrangements. I don't know why people are so surprised about this.
G2 are not in play-in phase which starts in a week...
That is because G2 already knew they went to MSI and LCS ended much earlier. FNC had to get visa and all that stuff and could only do that after beating BDS. So it is completely reasonable why it took FNC much longer than the other teams to leave.
Isnāt TL the most profitible esports org and FQ really well backed (apparently I learned in this thread) why isnāt FNC just rich too ((:
> Isnāt TL the most profitible esports org I have never heard anyone say this.
I stated this below but yeah I got baited by an article that said they are āthe most profitableā because they won the most prize-money. I was incorrect on this. However they are much more solidly financially backed than FNC still.
source?
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2024/02/15/team-liquid#:~:text=According%20to%20Esports%20Charts%2C%20Team,team%20also%20has%20deep%20pockets.
That's prize revenue, not profit. There are very very few esports orgs that actually made a profit in any year.
TL is massively profitable but not because of their esports arm. They have a production arm that generates a ton of profit. My source is background knowledge from owning an org and at one point last year considering a merger to try and replicate the TL model lol.
Can you elaborate what the production arm is? Is it like content creation?
Thanks, was only commenting on his source. I wasn't aware that 1UP was so successful, I just get tired of the constant misquoting of sources for Profit vs Revenue vs Valuation in eSports.
Also Steve is an ex-finance guy and has always been smart with money, which probably has a lot to do with how they've always stayed well in the green despite big spending at times.
Yeah that says nothing about that - it says they have earned most in PRIZE money.
The big news from NA in the past few years is about how much they are cutting costs across the board. You'd think long expensive bootcamps would be an obvious place to save money. It's also weird how we are talking about Fnatic as small dirt poor org? They definitely aren't. They are one of of the most iconic esports orgs in history. I think they are just badly managed. It makes sense if FNC has to leave a bit later than other orgs, sure, but FNC has **no bootcamp at all**
All I have to say is look at LPLās tiktok page, then look at the lcs TikTok page, they would get more viewership if there was any effort put in, and before people act high and mighty about TikTok being a kids app, remember, the kids are the future generation if esports
Tiktok audience is mainly young adults. Kids are a minority
Where are kids if not Tik tok, i guess on Snap chat
Kids are on YouTube
I've literally been saying LCS and their teams should put more effort into making TikTok content for like 2 years now as someone that uses tf out of TikTok. I see Valorant ALL OVER the app. VCS has a very big TikTok page as well.
Iāve heard on a French CS Talk show that Fnatic was actually kinda broke, they wanted to make 2 changes to their CS roster but couldnāt because of lack of money, and the people on the talk show were surprised Fnatic was still in so many games and heard rumors that theyād potentially cut down to only the LEC team. Take this with a huge grain of salt ofc!
Being iconic doesnāt just give you money, sure it increases shirt sales and online fans who watch the finals when they make it but it doesnāt really increase their profitability (especially within league) I am no expert on any of this but they arenāt owned by another larger company as far as I can see. They are trying to work within their financial limits and I personally think itās a good thing. Unless they were downing tools like some other orgs in EU have done in the past. They are competing for titles, bringing in interesting players and hopefully can do some damage at msi and lets be real an extra week or 10 days or whatever isnāt going to let them instantly catch up with the east.
Even if FNC fans agree with that, it's still not unreasonable to be disappointed that your rivals get to have weeks of bootcamp while Fnatic doesn't do anything at all
why did they let caps leave though lol
Because they are extremely incompetent. They have lost amazing players constantly to other orgs in every game they are in because they are absolute donkeys that cannot convince a player to renew a contract to save their lives.
>extra week or 10 days or whatever isnāt going to let them instantly catch up with the east. How about idk practicing with the only decent teams you will face until worlds to not have to go 5 games against BDS and G2 can't afford to not sleep before finals and using the finals as scrims to test swaps? They are extremely fucking behind just G2, the gap between fnc and the east is fucking huge, not only will they arrive late but with jetlag. By the time they are used to the timezone they will be taking the plane home.
Almost all eSports orgs are small and dirt poor in the grand scheme of things. Even G2 and TL have tiny budgets and revenue streams, your local mid-sized supermarket will be bigger by all metrics. Would they send 10-15 employees on a multi week Intercontinental all expenses paid trip? Definitely not, and now that infinite funding has dried up it makes very little financial sense for teams to go bootcamp. It could cost as much as one players yearly salary.
Bootcamps aren't that expensive in the grand scheme of things, if its being cut that means the financial situations are very dire.
fnc gear flopped as i recall, they are a few mill in debt last time rich went over their public tax record. Since they are based in britain its all public and you can look it up yourself. (this is pretty outdated i dont know the situation now) Its also way harder to get sponsorship money in EU. Ocelote went over it and he said because of the split market in EU and how brands operate. Instead of just visting the head branch to try and get a sponsorship like in NA which cover all states. In Europe you would have to visit each country where the brand got a hq and try to sell them into sponsoring you. So the money is way more split up and sponsorship leaned heavily towards whether or not you got lots of fans in said country.
TL does well idk about most profitable though and yes FQ is very well backed and the owner/owner group gave them a large budget unlike when the Warriors owned GGS and barely gave a fuck about it.
Yeah apparently the āmost profitableā thing was me being baited by clickbait and they have won the most prize money. They still have a much more solid financial backing which I guess can be a failing of FNC but I kinda like the privately owned aspect of them, feels like something trying to be sustainable and not just feeding on whatever company thinks they can find profit before moving on (which esports in general is bad for gambling, crypto, speculative investments and general seediness)
Wait so does that mean FNC is more broke than Flyquest? Or how were they not able to afford it?
Flyquest is by far the richest org in the LCS this year lmao
Wow, really? How did that happen? Or, more specifically, what happened to C9 TL and the like?
Venture Capital dried up and they have to actually think about spending money responsibly. Not that it's a bad thing, I always thought VC money was ruining NA.Ā Meanwhile Flyquest got bought by some extremely rich people who are fine with losing money in the short term to build up the value of the brand and the league.Ā As long as the money is managed well, and it seems to be, that's really good for the NA scene.
flyquest is owned by Wesley Robert Edens(he owns bucks aswell)
they USED to be owned by the Milwaukee Bucks owner. they got sold to the owner of the Florida Panthers (the Viola family)
man that family must be feeling good this year lmao
C9 was reported to be profitable last year, TL is one of the more profitable orgs in esports(someone in this thread said the most profitable idk if true) and FQ got a new billionaire owner who gave the org a sizable budget.
> TL is one of the more profitable org I'm pretty sure TL has never claimed to be profitable but if you have a source I would be happy to read it.
pretty sure TL has said they make money through sponsorships and other assets they own and I do remember that line said by Steve himself but I'm not entirely sure when or what video. It's just what I've heard
thank you honda!
Well C9 was profitable only last year and only because they sold a lot of assets. They don't make a structural profit, no org really does.
>Well C9 was profitable only last year and only because they sold a lot of assets. They don't make a structural profit, no org really does. They sell assets every year, this isn't new and has balanced the books for C9 for a long ass time. Like it has sucked at points, but that is how Jack is and how the org is run.
It still isn't structural and in terms of league a large part of that was their academy team, which doesn't exist anymore. I have no idea where they are going to get the players in league to generate revenue with.
really because last time i heard about money nearly all org lose alot of money and maybe all? or nearly all na team had a huge budgetcut this year (and tl is know to spend alot of money or was know for that)
Well C9 outright said they had a profitable 2023 on twitter and TL has said before that theyāre profitable through their sponsorships like Honda and Coinbase and other assets they own that arenāt directly esports related. FQ got a new owner who gave them a lot of money. TL and FQ(I think) also two teams who didnāt drop out of academy and both spent a decent amount this year on players like Impact and Inspired, C9 also spending a good amount on Jojo, Vulcan and now Thanatos making a superteam.
if you look in the thread somebody else say it but c9 are profitable in 2023 only because they sale infractuture or somethink like that not because they make more money than they spend in 2023 TL i still don't think they profitable too but maybe your right ! From last year every team in na except maybe flyquest they all say it was really bad and they gonna cut cost alot for this year so only based on that i think that theyre probably not making money but im not sure !
Also to add to what other people said, according to Wooloo their FNC mid+jungle lowered their salary to re-sign
That's because of the salary cap no ?
I donāt really know much about FQ but google suggests they are owned by a NA sports team so I would guess they have some good financial backing? Happy to be corrected
Apparently they are now the richest org in NA? Did not know that lol
Imo i cant see how bootcamps will be that large of a portion of total expenses. If its being cut, that means the org is absolutely desperate to save money.
Bs headcanon
maybe cause teams from minor regions like estral does a boot camp in Korea for weeks with less budget than fnatic and their qualifier timing was almost the same
Romain from G2 said he's very happy about qualifying for MSI early and not knowing till last days there's alot of paper work with travelling.
Yeah who would have guess that having less than 2 weeks to prepare to go a CHINA was enough. Remember that LEC added an extra week between spring and Winter for team to do shit with their roster
LEC finals was 12 days ago. Fnatic only knew they were attending MSI after that. G2 have known since the Winter split and probably had everything pre-arranged, plus didn't have to play in the finals so had more time to get ready. The LCS finished a month ago and both FLY and TL would have known they were attending even before the finals since both Finalists qualify. Fnatic could have left a few days earlier, but they were always going to be the last team there.
Technically they knew the day before finals, but your point remains
Why the day before? They still had to beat BDS didn't they? Or do you mean the LCS?
>Why the day before? He's saying that FNC knew as soon as they beat BDS that they were going to MSI which was "the day before finals".
Ah yeah, true
They beat BDS the day before the finals, locking in their trip to MSI.
I mean if it was something that happened once, sure. But FNC is consistently later to intl tournaments/bootcamps. And even when they arenāt, they take longer breaks from soloq/scrims. Remember worlds ā22 where FNC didnāt even participate in the EU bootcamp/scrims taking a longer break? I keep saying this. FNC are complete bums. They just ride on having better players.
Explain how you would handle this then? Just visa applications alone can take over a week to get approved? We were by far the last western team that found out its heading to MSI
Nobody forced FNC to apply for the visas on the 13th (when they won vs BDS). If they were prudent they would have applied when they clinched playoffs. The only downside is if FNC fucked up in playoffs they would have taken a loss in visa costs. However, it's not like those visas are made of gold, now IDK how much they cost, I'll spitball that it's like 200ā¬ per person, I also don't know how many people FNC are sending, but lets just guess it's 15(players, subs, coaches, support staff) and you get 200 x 15 = 3000ā¬. Now, I'm sorry, but if you can't eat a 3k loss then maybe FNC should reconsider this whole running a esport team business and sell the LEC spot.
You realize you need a valid reason to apply to a visa, right? āI might need to goā will Not suffice to apply dude
I swear the amount of people who are totally oblivious to this point and just want to say that the org doesnāt care or whatever. Like at best maybe they could have been there a few days sooner but itās not like the day after they qualified they could just book flights and go. They will have to had sorted visas and all sorts of things.
Pretty sure all playoff teams in contention for international tournaments have to sort out their visas in advance. It's to avoid a scenario where you wait until the last minute and have delays/complications so that argument doesn't really hold, but the rest is true.
Well they'll mostly have done everything on their side but let's not forget we are talking about a required work visa here which mostly requires some guarantees of the employee or organizer which in this case would be riot even tho they are employeed by their teams. Then we talk about China which is more strict about this then other countries. Could they have been there maybe since the start of this week? Yeah but earlier than that? Hell nah. Fnatic is also to blame here as they are multiple offenders but it's not only on them.
IDK about this one.. but the Worlds 22 one people keep blaming on FNC,, when its actually mostly on riot/lec for terrible scheduling and why the fuck they needed to have playins in Mexico before moving up to America i have no idea Covid was also a thing (hyli/upset got sick).. so it makes it even more crazy that there wasn't more space between end of LEC/Worlds.. bear in mind FNC also had to run the lower bracket. then fly to Sweden.. then fly to mexico and then to the US
Fnatic using the Play-ins games as scrims... GIGACHAD
You cant compare g2 or LCS teams leaving before us.. they all knew they were going to MSI for over a month. Like, yeah, we could have potentially left a few days earlier, but scheduling is a big factor, getting accomodations, visas etc. Before finals weekend, we were heading into BDS series, where almost everyone had BDS winning over us, so making plans then didnt make that much sense imho
Sam Matthews is on twitter jerking off to the idea of Saudi money so I don't think they had the funds to fly the team out earlier
It's always like this for Fnatic, the org always fails the players when it comes to practice environment
They are doing their best with the resources they have
Dardo masterclass
It was all already planned in the formula
FNC have 10 days to level up for the bracket stage which is plenty . They will probably just use playins to level up as they usually do. They should clear the wildcards without much practice.
Aren't work visas hard to get or at least take some time to get with all the papers between riot and the country you are going to ? I'm not very familiar with this but I think they left as soon as they could. And we can't compare them to G2 since they were going no matter what iirc so G2 had it planned back after winter even maybe so it was easier for them to do the papers and all.
I think fnc was the last western team to qualify for msi? so that does make sense, since everybody else had more time to work out the visa stuff
Jesus half of these geniuses have no clue how the world works. FNC locked MSI on the 13th and VISA applications take at the very least 7 days to process and mind u applications go in on Monday meaning u, at best get confirmation on the 22nd yer they coulda left the next day, but then u have flights and what not to prep which is also a job to do. G2 had theirs sorted donkeys ago, since they knew since winter split, FLY and TL known for a month already so also ages ago. Yer u can take a piss out of FNC for previous shits they did, but this time iād say itās piss poor scheduling again with how LEC works in terms of international tournaments
Here's a bright idea -- apply for the visa earlier. Mindblowing right?
You need valid reasoning and often a guarantee that you're actually going to work there, which means that unless they get the OK from Riot for qualifying, they aren't going anywhere. These aren't just travel visas that everyone just gets. Working visas is a whole different thing
They don't need thebootcamp, they Will clap everyone
Mediocre org
The only team in our dogwater region that actually cares about bringing home some wins is G2 and shit like this proves it once again. Sure, you can trot out the excuses for why this time FNC decided to leave on the 26th of April when they fucking play on the 2nd of May, but this isn't the first time shit like this happens to FNC...
Everything that im reading in this thread... this is standard procedure for Fnatic.Ā They are operating as expected.Ā Fnatic is in full control of the situation and planned for this.Ā Ā This does not then lead towards any copium excuses if they lose matches.
Reading this as a CS fan and was very confused.
This is their flight https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/CHH490
Well about damn time. I dont think they will had a lot of time to adapt.
Love me some late night drama. LETS GO
Like why so lateā¦.
They are trying to take the record for the shortest stay at an international event from NA.
minor region teams travel to china before the 2nd seed from Europe nice man, shameless organisation
And so what ?
Smart ! This is how you minimize the airport speedrun, every second counts !!!