YMMV / Players (2022)

• Genius Bonus: While the show is accessible to non-fans of esports, there's a lot of in-jokes to the professional League of Legends (especially the LCS in specific):
  • The first episode features a flashback to the scene in 2015, and one of the teams present happens to be Gravity Gaming, which briefly held a spot in the LCS for only the 2015 season before folding, earning memetic attention for their badass bomber jacket uniforms, which are faithfully recreated in the show.
  • Foresite is commented as having been signed to TSM as part of a $6 million contract, itself a reference to Hu "SwordArt" Shuo-Chieh, who was signed onto the real TSM in 2020 for a contract of the same amount, the biggest contract to a single League player to date.
• Jerkass Woobie: Creamcheese is an abrasive braggart who you probably wouldn't want to play League with in real life, and yet it's clear that he's also very insecure and depressed, having made winning the LCS championship his life's goal and sacrificing much personally to achieve it, making it all the more heartbreaking when he still keeps coming up short. This is a Competition Freak who wants to win because he has to, and the show makes it clear how much of a stressful toll it takes on him.
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: As a mockumentary of Professional Gaming culture, the show has been warmly received by participants and fans of esports as a whole, in large part thanks to the show's obviously parodic, yet tactful and affectionate depiction of the scene. It helps that they collaborated with Riot Games in covering one the most successful esports in the world, making it clear that the creators did their homework in finding all the idiosyncrasies of being an esports player that is rarely depicted among mainstream media — some involved with have even claimed that with how ridiculous and occasionally cringey pro gaming can actually get, the show may as well be a true story.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The first few episodes mostly take their time in establishing the fiction of the esports world and the people within it, presumably to allow newcomers unfamiliar with esports in general or pro League of Legends in specific to become acclimated without being completely lost, but consequently may make things drag if you are in the know of it. Once the stakes of Creamcheese's playoff arc is properly set, the pacing picks up significantly, allowing the series to go full force with the awkward hilarity and character-driven competitive drama.

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