Growing up with an older brother, I learned to be competitive at a very young age. I always wanted to win, no matter what, whether it was video games, sports, or board games. Memories as a child included watching my brother root for his favorite teams. One day, the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame, a favorite of his, were playing the Michigan Wolverines, and I started rooting for Michigan just to compete against him. Read more...
The top of the North American competitive League of Legends' landscape has been dichotomous since Cloud9 arrived on the scene a few years back, trading blow for blow with their NA heavyweight counterpart, Team Solomid. TSM has gotten the better of the staggering former champion lately, with two straight NA LCS titles and some international exposure to show for their roster rotations and coaching changes. Up until a couple of weeks ago, Cloud9, unlike their rivals, had maintained a steady roster and with the addition of Incarnation to their lineup, are now on the road to resurfacing as the primary powerhouse in North America. But can they overtake TSM? TSM have not been shy about roster swaps. Ever since Reginald stepped back to coach and brought Bjergsen across the pond, they have had a revolving door of replacements at the support and jungle positions. Having finally settled on Korean import Lustboy at support, TSM continued to search for the band-aid that would stop the bleeding that TheOddOne’s retirement started. European jungler Amazing would see an NA LCS title with the team, but with poor international play and mounting criticism from the "always poised to strike" League of Legends community, Amazing decided returning to Europe and his family would bring more happiness to his life. This opened the door for Santorin. Coming from the floundering Team Coast, Santorin would see a quicker bit of success than the former TSM jungler, with a decisive win in the championship of the NA split. Ultimately, TSM’s Mid-Season Invitational proved extremely disappointing, and many fans were unable to decide whether to lay the blame on top laner Dyrus or on Santorin’s aversion to top lane ganks. Which brings us to the Summer 2015 LCS split. Having made no roster changes, Reginald and coach Locodoco presumably have plans to counter the new and improved Cloud9 line-up, who increased their potential skill level in mid lane by several orders of magnitude with Incarnation’s arrival. While I personally agree with the lack of roster moves, it’s up to the management to continue to guide Santorin in the right direction as he grows and matures as a player. Decision making was not at its best in Tallahassee for Baylife, so some ideas definitely need to be thrown around, all the while fostering a synergistic team attitude, if they hope to continue to reign atop the North American LCS. However, Cloud9 is not the only team in the North American scene that has bolstered their roster. Several other teams have their eyes on dethroning at least one of the usual finalists from North America. Since former mid-laner Link left with a massive bridge-fire, CLG has made huge moves to improve their shot at showing up in the post-season this summer. With the introduction of former Winterfox wunderkind Pobelter and Korean ringer Huhi, CLG hope that an SKT-like approach to the mid lane position will allow them to be more flexible in terms of their game-to-game strategies, although this will not be readily apparent until we see how CLG plays with both mid laners, and also gets into a relevant best-of series. On the less flashier side of things, Team Impulse has shown significant growth over the course of the past 4 months, led by solo queue superstar Rush, who as of this writing is tied with Faker for first place on the Korean ladder, and will bring the same 5 starters into the Summer split looking for a shot at going to Worlds. One thing is for sure, though. If North America wants to become an international threat, the middling talent of its leagues needs to step up. Impulse, CLG, Gravity, and Team Liquid will need to continue their improvements shown week-to-week last split if they hope to challenge for the NA title, and Cloud9 and TSM need these teams to become better to put the onus on themselves to improve and compete on an international level.
by Kennan French Counter Logic Gaming recently announcing that they will have both Pobelter and HuHi playing mid lane on their main roster, and it's hard not to draw comparisons to SK Telecom's system of rotating Easyhoon and Faker in between games. Personally, I’m glad to see an NA team having a roster with more than five starters. However, there are plenty of differences in these situations that are important to keep in mind. First, SKT has a distinct strategic decision when choosing Faker or Easyhoon, since they have very different styles: Faker plays aggressively, always looking to make plays and draw pressure, whereas Easyhoon is typically a more passive laner who looks to enable his whole team to get fed. CLG won’t have such a clear decision; both HuHi and Pobelter are most at home playing aggressively on assassins. Now, this may work if CLG wants to really prioritize a certain pick (Zed, for example, is considered to be one of Pobelter's signature champions, while HuHi has seen better results on LeBlanc) but they generally share most of their champion pools so one champion isn't likely to change this much, especially since the other team can just ban it away.
Second, the caliber of player isn't the same on CLG as it is on SKT. It's not that Pobelter and HuHi aren't good mid laners - they are - but this is Faker and Easyhoon we're talking about. Faker has won a world championship, and Easyhoon is widely considered to be comparable to Faker in skill; Pobelter has had to play to keep his team in the NA LCS twice (and only been successful once). HuHi was winless during his time on Bigfile Miracle when he played mid lane for them in Korea. Of course, one good player does not a good team make, and both Pobelter and HuHi are good players, but it would be hard to argue that they are better than Faker or Easyhoon. Also, while they would have this same problem with only one mid laner, this problem adds another element of uncertainty to their decision about who to play.
The last, and most important, difference between CLG's situation and SKT's is that the NA LCS games are all Best-of-1 series (during the regular season, at least) whereas the OGNLCKit's OGN, let's be real LCK games are Best-of-3. This means that SKT can play Easyhoon in Game 1 and then Faker in Game 2 if they want to try a different strategy or counter something unexpected that the other team did, or one of them is tired, or for any number of other reasons. CLG will not have this option. They have to choose one player for each game and hope they made the right choice, with no recourse if they didn't. This leaves us with how CLG will use their rotating mid lane roster this coming season. It's likely that, if they want to run a split-pushing composition, they'll put in Pobelter. Pobelter has also shown more prowess on more supportive mid laners; he has 10 Orianna games to HuHi's 0, and a considerably higher win rate on Lulu with more games. If they want to run a mid lane AD carry, HuHi would be the one to put in. And, as a final prediction and without knowing much about the team dynamic the past split, having two mid laners will likely be a boost to team morale if one of them tilts (assuming they are both mature about being subbed in and out). So yes, there are some similarities between the mid lane rosters of SKT and CLG, but it's important not to take their situations as identical; to do so would be ignoring the teams' strategies, the skill of the players, and the formats of the respective leagues that the teams are competing in.
A bit surprisingly, I’ve got Cloud 9 back on top. Hai retired, which is a huge loss for their team, but he’s still going to be around providing insight, meaning his contributions will still be felt. The question becomes, will they have Incarnati0n be a shot caller or transition someone else on the team into it. We have yet to see what Incarnati0n will bring, but he’s kept himself up on the top of the solo queue ladder all this time while he was banned. If that doesn’t say he’s been preparing for this moment, I don’t know what does. The rest of the team is still as strong as ever, and with Balls moving past his slump from the early part of the season and Sneaky putting himself in the running for best ADC in NA, Cloud 9 looks like they’re ready to take back their crown from TSM.
What to Watch:
Incarnati0n is back for the first time since LCS’s inception.
Sneaky needs to keep his success up
2. TSM
There really isn’t much to say here for TSM, everyone knows how dominant they’ve been this season and they haven’t had to change a thing. Their one point of competition was Cloud 9 and Hai just couldn’t perform in addition to some early season slumps from Balls. Lustboy was a monster and Bjerg was Bjerg. Santorin was a surprise to me, as watching how other teams have had promising players come in and proceed to trip their way down the split, Santorin looked very comfortable after the first few weeks. Teams kept trying to tilt Dyrus and it just didn’t work. He kept himself on champs like Lulu and Maokai, who don’t need to get as much gold to be useful, and did his thing. If there’s one chink in the armor though it’s WildTurtle. He has a habit of getting very aggressive and sometimes puts himself in a bad position. The rest of the team has been able to cover that, but this split looks like it’s got even more competition than last.
What to Watch:
Dyrus Dying
WildTurtle positioning
3. CLG
Ahh CLG, always looking great until the end of the season. This might finally be the split to break that though. Link has retired and he’s being replaced almost SKT style by bringing in two different mid laners that CLG plan on swapping back and forth. It’s going to be interesting to see how NA teams handle trying to strategize around 2 possible players. The player to watch here is going to be Xmithie, he had a few chokes late in the split in the spring and it’s going to be on him to try and fix those mistakes coming into the home stretch for worlds. I think finally we’ll see the team start to pull themselves together and make a run for Europe.
What to Watch:
Xmithie needs to step up a bit
How will Swapping of mid laners work for and against CLG
Impulse started off last split in complete disarray. The dirty laundry of LMQ had been aired out and the only remaining player was XiaoWeiXiao. Impulse pulled in Impact of S3 World champs SKT, which everyone thought would be the big pick up. The player that has really shown up though has been Apollo( formerly WizFujiin). His play really solidified Impulse as a threat to other teams. While they needed time to understand their calls, the team speaks 3 different languages, they seemed like they were going full force at the end of the split and they will most likely be keeping that trend up moving into the summer.
What to Watch:
Continued success from the end of last split
XiaoWeiXiao farming
5. Team Liquid
Liquid looked really strong at the end of the split, finally breaking the Curse curse. The real question now is going to be, “will they keep the momentum or start back from the beginning?”. I’m leaning more towards them keeping it up. Piglet looked more like a former world champion than we had ever seen from him in NA at the end of playoffs and while Quas and Dominate will be the backing veterans lead by Xpecial, Fenix has shown how he can be an up and coming threat and brief Mcmoments from Keith have been great signs on where the team is heading.
What to Watch:
Piglet is looking back to his old form
Fenix keeping heat up in mid
6. Enemy Esports
The new kids on the block, we don’t know that much about them, especially because they got a free pass into the LCS. Innox is back and will most likely be trying to lead the team with his previous LCS experience. Otter and Trashy have substitute experience, so they aren’t going in blind. They absolutely stomped the NACS and I think they will hold their own against the lower tier teams in the league.
What to Watch:
Innox back in a new lane
How will Otter stack up against other ADCs
7. Team 8
Calitrolz is the leader of this team. Which is actually unfortunate for two reasons. One, he’s leaving after this split and if Team 8 survives they need to find a new top laner and they most likely won’t find one with the same level of leadership and knowledge as Calitrolz. Two, the meta just doesn’t favor top lane carries at the moment. Maple and Slooshi are usually behind and Cali can only sometimes even it out Usually a win depends on how Porpoise shows up
What to Watch:
Calitrolz pulling his team up as far as he can
Porpoise needs to make an impact
8. Gravity
Saint is retiring and while his mechanical strengths weren’t all too great his shot calling was what made him the right fit for Gravity. He has a lot of game knowledge and I’d love to see him be a coach one day. Regardless he won’t be on Gravity next season. This is a really crushing blow and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Gravity making some bad calls this split. Keane is very volatile and he can pull out some weird picks that either make plays or just lose hard. Hauntzer is very underrated, but he don’t play champs that can carry if other lanes fall behind really hard. Bunny is amazing if you put him on Thresh, but he stumbles a bit otherwise, and of course Cop is just Cop.
What to Watch:
Who’s going to make the calls in game
What will Keane do next
9. Team Dragon Knights
The team that Alex got into the league, whether you agree with what happened or not, they’re here now. It’s gonna be hard to pinpoint these guys since we don’t even know who their mid laner is going to be. Seraph is here, and he seems a lot more comfortable than he was in CLG, and he’s being put in a position that he is more familiar with not only with his team, but the way the meta is shaping up as well. Altec is rumoured to be in talks to join the team, and if that happens in addition to getting a good mid laner, I could see these guys shooting up. For now though I’ve got them in 9th
What to Watch:
Seraph on smite tele hyper tanks
Mid lane and ADC changes
10. Team Dignitas
I was legitimately surprised that Dignitas beat Fusion. Fusion once again flopped out and choked. This doesn’t really mean much other than one more split. dignitas made no roster changes, and have little to offer outside of great engages from KiWiKiD. Both Gamsu and Azingy have been disappointing as well as CoreJJ and Shiphtur has never lived up to his potential.
What to Watch:
KiWiKiD engages
Surprises if someone steps up
EU LCS
1. H2K
H2K were almost the ones to go to MSI because of a very close best of 5 at the end of the Spring Split. While Fnatic makes their plays by engaging and forcing fights, H2k has a much more tactical approach. With their coach Pr0lly at the helm, they went from being a lower tier team to almost champs in a split. I can only imagine how hungry they are after their small taste of the top and are busting their butts to try and get 1st this split. Their macro game strategy is top notch and a step above other teams in Europe and this is what’s going to take them to number 1.
What to Watch:
Rotations
Wins from map control rather than brute force
2. Fnatic
Fnatic showed themselves as a top tier team at MSI almost being the first team to take down SKT in a best of 5, despite that they’re being placed 2nd. They made an interesting swap in picking up Rekkles again after he left Elements. Once again messing with the synergy, which in my opinion was one of Fnatic’s strengths, and swapping out Steelback. Steelback was doing pretty well for himself, so I’m pretty surprised about this. Febiven looked like a monster at MSI and was able to solo kill Faker a few times. Huni is still Huni and Yell0wStaR is always going to be flash Tibbers stunning people all day. Rekkles is a much safer ADC though and I don’t know how well he’s going to handle the aggression
What to Watch:
Rekkles and his ability to mesh with the new team
Huni being cute
3. Origen
I’m probably gonna get a lot of flak for this one. I think Origen is going to end 3rd regardless. xPeke is still very good and Amazing is solid. Niels is also really good at ADC, but I’m too split on S0az. He’s very tilt happy and I’ve seen it cause his teams losses many times in the past. When he’s on, he’s very very good, but he’s prone to just throwing himself at the enemy if he starts to fall behind.
What to Watch:
S0az tilt and how he handles it
Bot lane is relatively new to pro play, Mithy hasn’t played for over a year
4. Unicorns of Love
I love the playstyle, as it’s exciting and unique, but I don’t see Unicorns of Love making it past 4th this split. Their style is inherently risky and can cause them to get stomped sometimes because it doesn’t work. They know what they’re doing but we’ve seen them falter at points. Not only that but this split there are a lot more competitive teams coming in. Hylissang also has some work to do on supports that aren’t Thresh.
What to Watch:
Lots of weird picks
Bot lane camps since it’s their weakest lane
5. Elements
If you can still call them that. The super team that turned out to be a mess and a half. Froggen is the only remaining member. While I think The move to Jwaow is an upgrade, Wickd is from an era gone by, Tabzz is about even, and Dexter is around the same. PromisQQ is a brand new player to the LCS so we don’t have a lot to go on. There’s a lot of team building that needs to happen, but these guys are all, with the exception of PromisQQ, guys who’ve been in the LCS and around the block for a bit, so I don’t see it as being too much of an issue.
What to Watch:
How will the new guy, PromisQQ handle the big stage pressure
Will missteps happen with little time to prepare
6. SK Gaming
Obviously SK didn’t have the end of the split they had hoped for, but they have moved towards a more team oriented approach now. An approach I feel will be better for them. CandyPanda is a much more selfless ADC and that lets players like Fox and Freddy carry more. The only problem this might cause is that it leaves a very open weak spot in SK where they used to have none. SK needs to understand how to play from behind because they might have to with the mechanical downgrade
What to Watch:
Weaker bot lane than last split
Have they learned to play from behind
7. Gambit Gaming
The addition of FORG1VEN is huge for Gambit, but I don’t believe it’s a purely positive huge. While the “See Hero Kill Hero” strategy of Gambit is a better fit for FORG1VEN I don’t believe they have had enough time to mesh and this can cause, and has caused, teams to melt down. Gambit also only barely got going near the end of the split after making a bunch of changes. While it’s possible they can keep that going, it’ll be hard with a new ADC. The biggest questions are going to be how well Gambit can handle strife as they could very easily spiral down quickly.
What to Watch:
Gosu Pepper and FORG1VEN synergy
If things go sour early in the split, how will they handle it?
8. ROCCAT
The way the split ended for ROCCAT a few weeks ago was disastrous, but that really defined the split for ROCCAT. Small mistakes becoming huge problems. They came into the year as huge favorites to be top 2 and then blew leads or just didn’t show up. There isn’t one person to blame here either, which is why they’ve hit the 8th spot here. I don’t think the past few weeks were enough time to really solidify their issues.
What to Watch:
Woolite tilt
NukeDuck tilt
Everyone tilt
9. Copenhagen Wolves
The Wolves have a lot of improving to do this split as their counterparts in the EU have all gotten extremely good. AirWaks is usually a non-factor, and as a jungler that’s a problem, Unlimited also lacks a lot of pressure as well. Youngbuck has been falling off the past year or so and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. They’ve always been the bottom side of the bracket, but this might be the time they fall out
What to Watch:
Freeze is a very strong ADC
Pressure on Airwaks to show up
10. Giants Gaming
PePii and Werlyb have shown flashes of great play, but even when they show these great sides, it’s usually not enough to pull up their slow macro game. Noxiak was a great addition mid way through the season and his Leona helped snowball their carries past a point where strategy was a big deal, I don’t think they’re going to be able to get away with that this split.
What to Watch:
PePii and maybe Werlyb trying to carry
Flashes of great engages from Noxiak
Day 1 of MSI 2015 was by most accounts an unexciting affair, with nearly
no upsets outside of whether or not you thought EDG under-performed against SKT
or that they are simply that much worse than SKT. However, the Saturday picture
had become pretty clear after a single day of games, with seeding and which
western team would get a shot in a best-of series being the only major
storylines on the day. Day 2 opened up with an important piece of the latter
plot with EDG and Fnatic squaring off.
Game 1: Edward Gaming vs Fnatic
Yellowstar and his rookies looked towards EDG on Day 2 with
a hopeful mindset. Technically, losing this game didn't put them into any worse
of a spot to get themselves into Saturday’s knockout games, but pulling off the
upset would put Fnatic firmly in control of their own destiny, and the
possibility of any tiebreaker games nearly out of reach for TSM. But things got
ugly really fast for Western squad, which would become a recurring theme on the
day, as Yellowstar burned his flash to steal Gromp from the EDG bot lane, only
to end up on the receiving end of Clearlove and his all-but-patented early
aggression out of the jungle. Shortly afterwards, Koro1 would get a retribution
kill turning a top lane dive from Fnatic into a nightmare start for the
European champions. Koro1 added another couple hundred gold to his pocket after
baiting Huni into a close trade, with Clearlove roaming top to help Koro1
secure the kill. By seven minutes, EDG had seven kills, a 3k gold lead, and a
choke hold on the remainder of the game. Fnatic’s hopes of putting TSM into
panic mode were thwarted by the aggressive Chinese side, with EDG’s strategy of
poetic chaos proving to be entirely too much for Fnatic to handle.
Statistically, EDG had over a kill per minute, and Fnatic’s nexus would topple
over in quick fashion.
Game 2: AHQ eSports Club vs Team Solomid
The drama for TSM was at a crescendo, as not only would a
win here put the boys from California (and Denmark and Korea) into a powerful
position to force tiebreaker games and reach the semifinals, but a loss would
see them at the mercy of either beating EDG, a tall order regardless of the
team’s form so far at this event, or rooting for Besiktas to officially take
the hand-off from Kabum, and save yet another North American team from
elimination at an international event. TSM began the game shifting back to
their traditional tactics, successfully initiating a lane swap and beginning
their early game. Unfortunately, the past 3 games for TSM were not the proper
instructional tools they required, and Dyrus once again gave up first blood
from a gank, with TSM’s jungler Santorin nowhere to be found. AHQ would
continue to dominate the early game, culminating in a fight near baron that
would result in a three-for-one for AHQ, with Wildturtle being the only carry
for TSM to pick up any gold from the fight. TSM would continue to fight,
however AHQ would lose precisely zero team fights the entire game, and almost
like clockwork, another Asian team secured a victory over a western team before
the 30 minute mark.
Game 3: Besiktas eSports Club vs Edward Gaming
As we progressed through day 2 and it became more and more
clear just how much stronger the eastern teams have been than the western
teams, this game promised to be absolutely terrifying for the Turkish wild card
invite. EDG would secure first blood on mid laner Energy, before dual 6 minute
fights bot lane and top lane would result in several EDG victories, and the beginning
of one of the most heinous snowballs in competitive League of Legends history.
With EDG looking for wins simply to keep pace with SKT, and with how bloody the
first 12 minutes of this game ended up being, I was honestly surprised this
game lasted long enough to give Besiktas the option to surrender. To their
credit, they didn't, but they would lose shortly afterwards.
Game 4: Fnatic gaming vs SK Telecom
The midway point of Day 2 in Tallahassee would provide us
with possibly the closest and most exciting game of the tournament, potentially
soured by the fact that SKT was clearly goofing off for about 20 minutes.
Fnatic jumped out to an early lead on kills, and would maintain it, stretching
their lead to as many as 11 kills at one point, but their gold lead would
remain close. Almost as if the Kings of Asia were simply playing with their
food, the kills continued to go in Fnatic’s favor while the gold stayed
identical. SKT would begin clawing back, and while they would never take the
gold lead, it was a controversial Sejuani bug that would cause the beginning of
the end for Fnatic.
The Sejuani bug in question, as seen above, was originally
waved off as a spectator glitch, but has since been replicated by various
players on Reddit. However, with the transparently obvious trolling SKT did for
20 minutes, and the absolutely explosive way the game ended, with SKT marksman
Bang getting a pentakill on his Lucian, it seems to me that Fnatic simply opted
against remaking. No other team came as close as Fnatic did at seemingly
dismantling SKT’s defenses, why not shrug off your inevitable loss to a bug
rather than remake and have SKT end the game at 25 minutes, as they most likely
would have done. Overall, it was the correct decision to avoid remaking, for
player and viewer sake.
Game 5: Edward Gaming
vs Team Solomid
TSM entered their last game with one option: Win, otherwise
Besiktas decides their fate. Unfortunately, for the fifth consecutive game,
Dyrus was on the receiving end of an early gank that had no support from
Santorin. And, again, Dyrus would be the victim of a second, and a third gank,
giving EDG a three kill to zero lead before TSM had reacted in any capacity.
TSM’s uninspired performances continued well into this game, with virtually no
signs of life anywhere to be seen. What was once seen as the glimmering hope of
NA, a mechanically strong TSM team with a superstar mid laner and an
ultra-innovative support, saw what would potentially be their final nexus of
the tournament fall as EDG embarrassed them at every corner of the map. Like
Cloud 9 half a year ago, TSM was now at the mercy of the underdog, this time
from Turkey.
Game 6: Besiktas eSports Club vs Fnatic
TSM would see their hope dissipate within minutes of the
penultimate group stage game’s start. Fnatic forced two early kills for
themselves, as a gank mid would end bot lane with both Energy and Thaldrin
succumbing to Fnatic’s pressure. Fnatic would wrangle their early pressure into
a dragon and plenty of early turret pressure, while a Rek’sai Thresh combo gank
bot lane would result in 4 kills for Fnatic and the first turret of the game.
Fnatic’s early gold lead would never be truly tested by Besiktas, and while the
game was a bloody affair that lasted a few minutes longer than it maybe should
have, Fnatic would topple Besiktas’ nexus, and TSM’s hopes of advancing, at the
25 minute mark.
Game 7: SK Telecom vs AHQ
The final game of the group stages of MSI 2015 would provide
a potential finals matchup, with AHQ potentially pushing for a tiebreaker game
to decide first place for the group stage. This game would also prove to be the
most satisfying game of the entire tournament so far, regardless of whether or
not it truly meant anything other than seeding position. AHQ looked to prove
themselves once and for all, being harshly underrated coming into the event,
having finished fourth in their league before their tremendous playoff streak.
However, AHQ put themselves into an early hole as SKT would get first blood on
AHQ jungler Mountain, and a roam top from Bengi would cost AHQ top laner Ziv
his flash. However, a restitution gank would come from Mountain, getting AHQ
marksman AN an early kill on his Sivir. AHQ would wrestling the gold lead from
SKT, pushing objectives and gaining ground on kills with their crisper
rotations. As the game progressed, Westdoor’s Cho’gath continued to spike in
power, with several team fights ending almost as they began after Westdoor’s
feast would nearly one shot Bang’s Urgot. With SKT losing team fight after team
fight, it looked like we were heading towards tie breakers as SKT’s armor
looked to finally be cracked, until Easyhoon decided he’d had enough. An
engagement near Baron in the blue side jungle allowed Easyhoon’s Azir to shred
through AHQ’s entire team with perfect positioning, ending in an outrageous
flash Emperor’s Divide to secure the ace. With a 10k gold deficit, SKT would
march through the front door of AHQ’s base, obtaining a perfect 5-0 group round record and the number 1 seed.
As we bid farewell to Besiktas and Team Solomid, we’re
forced to wonder just how big the gap between the West and the East is right
now. Fnatic look to be the last bastion of hope for western fans, as they match
up against SKT to start off Saturday’s semifinal matches. EDG and AHQ will
round out the day, in a series that promises to be significantly more
entertaining than its opening act, but maybe Fnatic can surprise us?
