A little over a decade ago (so somewhere in the early triassic period as far as videogames go) I was involved in big tourneys within the terrible game I was no

A little over a decade ago (so somewhere in the early triassic period as far as videogames go) I was involved in big tourneys within the terrible game I was no-lifing at the time for efame, eglory, and shitty prizes. My teammates and I had played for years at this point and despite being better at the forums than the game, we knew our way around the meta and had enough experience to make sensible decisions on the fly. Even then, we weren't ever within touching distance of the top tiers. Not even close. Every tourney we were watched, jeered and very occasionally cheered by thousands of other players as we muddled through early stages against other weaker teams before eventually being out meta'd and out played by better players and it was brutal, adrenaline-shaking dopamine-flooded experience. It was physically addictive at its best, and absolutely soul crushing at worst. Even within my short, strictly amateur 'career' in esports, the gulf between the top teams and everybody else was crazy. The level of dedication and raw focus the eventual winners possessed was frankly insane and something I simply wouldn't ever be able to muster. These guys who are already mechanically superb are living and breathing their games. I genuinely can't even begin to imagine what it's like for professional LoL players at the top of the scene, small teams competing for huge prize pools with individual performance publicly dissected and analysed in microscopic detail by hordes of armchair pundits. Throw in the inevitable post-tournament rosterpocalypse and flakey team management, I can't help but feel professional esports is cannibalising these players.