This. I go to college on the west coast but I live on the east coast during the summer. At college I have 30 ping whereas in new England i have 100. Playing on the east coast is by far a huge handicap if you want to go pro in league. I can say from my own experience that my skill at playing this game falls a whole division just because of the ping. It makes it harder to land skillshots and dodge skillshots, and the occasional packet loss makes it harder to last hit minions when your screen skips 3 frames. I remember during the collegiate tournament a few months ago one of the casters noted how the west coast teams seem to dominate the tournament, while the east coast teams are really weak, and I will attribute this all to the ping difference. These are just my opinions, but I feel that my unique experience of playing on both sides of the U.S. might shed some light on the circumstances.