On Sunday at the North American LCS final between defending champion Team SoloMid and a fellow returning finalist in Vancouver, the regular-season MVP award was given to a player who had played a day earlier: the third-place finisher and Phoenix1's star AD carry, South Korea-born Noh "Arrow" Dong-hyeon. That continued a streak of no North American-born player winning the regular-season honor since it was introduced by Riot Games following the first few seasons of the league.
Ever since it became an official award, MVP has gone to TSM's Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg three times. He was born in Denmark and resides in the United states.
The second-place finisher for this year's award, U.S.-born Kevin "Hauntzer" Yarnell, was neck-and-neck with Arrow in one of the closest MVP races in NA LCS history, and he barely lost to the former KT Rolster marksman. Instead, Hauntzer took home the NA LCS finals MVP award against Cloud9, qualifying his club for the Mid-Season Invitational in Brazil that begins days from now.
This was also the second season in a row in which an American came close to breaking the drought of a non-North American winning the MVP. Last summer, it was Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng, who lost to Bjergsen in another tightly contested vote.
As usual, the talk of the winner was drowned out by discussion of who came in second. Hauntzer, a former role player on Gravity and in his first season or two on TSM, broke out at the end of last year and reached a new level this split, becoming one of the team's primary carries and shot-callers with the absence of Doublelift in the starting lineup. Hauntzer's play throughout was at an elite level, and it was only magnified by the fact that the top lane position became the most contested in the league, with current and former legends from South Korea joining teams such as Immortals and Dignitas. Kim "Ssumday" Chan-ho, one of the best players in the world last year (until at least the South Korean regionals), entered with a swagger about him, and others, such as Lee "Flame" Ho-jong and Jang "Looper" Hyeong-seok, wanted to reassert themselves in a weaker region.
Hauntzer didn't budge, though. In a league in which more than half of the top laners are South Korean, the TSM star outperformed them all on the split. He reinforced that in the final, in which he outlasted Cloud9's top lane battery of Jung "Impact" Eon-yeong and Jeon "Ray" Ji-won.
To be transparent: I voted Hauntzer as my MVP representative for ESPN.com, and even though playoffs have no bearing on the regular-season award, under Riot's own words -- "Vote for the best performing player of the split" -- I stick by my decision to vote for Hauntzer, the player who shined in a position in which a number of the top laners could be depended on in the international stage if called upon.
But that isn't to say Arrow didn't deserve it. Compared to top lane, the AD carry position was a desolate wasteland for most of the season, and Arrow was one of the only players at the position who made an impact game in and game out. When P1 was troubled with countless moves in the starting lineup, Arrow still performed well. Over the course of the season, Arrow played with three different supports, and the bottom lane of P1 was the team's greatest strength, regardless of whom Arrow was playing next to for the week.
Either choice is acceptable. Last season, the same went for Bjergsen and Doublelift. The issue is that in a region in which almost every team has two foreign-born players on the roster, standing out as a North American player is more difficult than ever. If Hauntzer were from South Korea, there would be talk of him as one of the better top laners in the world.
Instead, as a player in a region that has become famous for importing big names left and right, he always has to prove himself. To be fair, the stigma that follows North America-born players isn't unwarranted: What does it say about a region when almost every team's star player comes from Europe or South Korea?
Ironically, NA LCS, the most import-happy region along with China's LPL (which seems to be moving away from it), is almost always won by clubs that stay away from inheriting big names from South Korea. TSM, Cloud9 and Counter Logic Gaming -- the only three clubs to win championships in the league -- have done so by building around teams that can communicate well together. Almost every regular-season has one or two South Korean players atop or close to the top of the MVP voting, and then you see Bjergsen, Hai "Hai" Lam and Zaqueri "Aphromoo" Black lead their clubs to victory.
Arrow is a deserving MVP. Hauntzer would have been one as well. To be frank, if we were truly to give the MVP award to the most deserving player every NA LCS season, Bjergsen probably would have five or six MVPs at this point. Until North America becomes a region that isn't categorized as the haven of foreign-born players, it'll be difficult for someone from Canada or America to win the award outright over the slew of highly touted South Koreans clubs build around.
Or perhaps one day Bjergsen wakes up, and he's magically American.
Whichever happens first.