What IEM San Jose taught us about next season.

1. Unicorns Of Love should definitely not be dismissed as a contender in EU.
While they were not able to win the tournament and their play left some things to be desired UOL impressed far beyond expectations. PowerOfEvil and Vizicsacsi had incredible performances beating up on some of the best players NA has to offer. Kikis also impressed with his vast, though a little misguided (see below), array of champions he was able to showcase in the tournament. UOL still has some work to do, especially in terms of quickly turning a large lead into a victory, but given the track record of EU teams surging out of the promotion tournament it's definitely worth keeping eyes on how UOL progresses.

2. Dragon and Baron are far more valuable, but far more dangerous to take.
With the patch 4.20 changes Baron and Dragon went from helpful advantages to out right overpowering in importance. Baron's new buff gives pushing power on par with a downed inhibitor. Dragon gives a myriad of powerful buffs that are generally more valuable than the advantage gained by destroying outer, and in some cases inner, turrets and the 5th dragon buff basically wins the game for you.
On top of being more valuable Dragon and Baron have also had their damage increase making them harder to pick up. Dragon is hard, nearly impossible next patch, to juggle and does significant damage making early dragon plays or contested dragons far more dangerous than last season. Attempting the new Baron with low health or in the face of too many enemies is a good way to not just lose the buff but get your team aced to an enemy all in.
Interestingly you can see how these changes shifted things like champion picks to cope. Because the dragon and baron objectives are harder to secure but more worth it when you do most teams shifted into variations of safe AoE poke comps. Jayce and Corki who were already strong on 4.19 ascended to near god tier, Ezreal rejoined the meta as a popular marksmen, and mid marksmen picks showed up as easy ways to get to ban Jayce without giving up on the Jayce style team comp.

3. The jungle possibilities hype was a bit premature.
This was something I was already pretty sure of watching early tournaments on 4.20 such as Brazil's Razer Challenge or the Black Monster Cup, but IEM San Jose was really the final nail in the coffin that confirmed it. The reign of early game pressure junglers like Lee Sin remains firmly intact. We all enjoyed watching Kikis' unconventional picks like Twisted Fate and Kayle, and we've seen some Warwicks go big, but Meteos ran a clinic on viable jungle picks during the tournament.
Without doubt Meteos was the most influential player at IEM and the MVP by far and it's largely due to his better understanding of viable junglers on the new patch. Instead of being fooled by soloqueue success of champions like Warwick, Meteos tore apart teams with junglers who could get into the lanes and the enemy jungle earlier and cause chaos before his opponent had time to reach their much needed power spike. The dominance of Meteos at IEM San Jose coupled with the continued popularity in tournaments around the world make it clear the reign of Lee Sin King of the Jungle is far from over.

The Myth of the 5 Man Roster

Since it's inception at the start of season 3 the LCS has required teams to list at minimum two substitute players, and Riot currently requires a sub be brought to the World Championships with teams. Subs have seen play numerous times in the two years of LCS. From GGU's multiple sub attempts before settling on Jintae to replace Shiphtur in the inaugural spring split, to SK being forced to use Gilius to replace Svenskeren for their first three matches of the season 4 World Championships, substitutes see play quite frequently in the LCS. Despite the dozens of substitutions required in only two years of the LCS only one team has brought a sub into their gaming house and trained with them as an actual part of their roster.

Most teams in the LCS have a very careless attitude when it comes to substitute players. They treat subs as a check box on the LCS entry forms at worst, and as RoI (return on investment) streambots for their sponsors at best. TSM listed popular streamer Nightblue3 as a substitute player while he posted their sponsor's ads on his stream, but both parties admit he was never going to play in the LCS for TSM and when TSM made a change in the jungle they imported former Copenhagen Wolves jungler Amazing rather than pull up a listed substitute. Speaking of CW, they were last split forced to forfeit a LCS match when mid laner CowTard became ill and CW failed to get the paperwork for their substitute ready in time. When it came time for CW to make roster changes they again ignored their listed substitute Mazzerin, who unlike most had actually made it in for a game, and brought in a new player SorenXD as their new mid laner. When Gambit had visa issues that prevented most of the roster from attending the LCS road trip in England they scouted 4 new players to use as substitutes instead of pulling up either of their listed subs. Examples like this can be found all over the LCS where listed substitutes being used, much less becoming a starter, are an oddity rather than the norm.

Contrast that to other regions where deep rosters are used quite often. Samsung White's Looper is a well known examples to western players as he made his debut with the team at the Season 3 World Championships. LPL's OMG had trained enough with both their support players Dada777 and Cloud to allow them to switch between the players going from group stage to bracket stage during the World Championship and actually see improvement. There's also Chawy for TPA who played multiple games with the team during the GPL season and was reportedly on hand for the Season 4 Championships though not used.

Despite it being quite a common practice in the other World Championship regions the LCS regions have only had 1 single team really attempt the deep roster. That team was Evil Geniuses (EG) back when it was a European team. They brought in Shacker to train with the team and rotate with Snoopeh. The results were a clear success for the team. Snoopeh was fierce in pursuing his starting position again and played some of the best games seen from him in season 3, while Shacker also drove the team forward. Shacker's addition to the team in the summer split of EU LCS helped EG secure a spot in the 2nd-5th tie breaker matches. EG was able to go 2-1 taking 3rd for the regular season. Though EG did fall in playoffs to Gambit landing 4th place just outside a ticket to worlds the success of the experiment is still plain to see in their results.

Though the western scene has for the most part chosen to ignore deep rosters the benefits are plain to see in examples like OMG, and EG. A deep roster of live in substitutes gives teams insurance against whatever random illness or unfortunate life events might sideline a player, with live in subs a game is not simply a write off just because your mid laner can't show up this week. It gives greater flexibility to a team's play style. Subs with different champion pools can rotate in and out depending on opponents to maximize the team's strength, capitalize on a particular enemy weakness, or simply avoid a slump. More than anything deep rosters give more effective training, having another player there to bounce ideas off of, to train specific match ups, and test builds against is an incredible resource many teams go without.

While LCS teams may have mostly ignored the results of the EG experiment change is coming. The next season of OGN will see them move to single team 10 man rosters, a change that if handled properly could strengthen the Korean scene. Instead of splitting focus between two teams with two play styles they'd be able to assemble a ferocious group of 10 that fit seamlessly together and constantly vie for the starting position. Closer to home Team Fusion has commenced another grand experiment like EG's with a 7 man roster living in the house which so far has net them 5th seed in the expansion tournament and a strong chance to make LCS.

How Samsung White built advantages out of nothing.

It's no secret Samsung White is unparalleled as the best team in the world right now. They demolished competition on their way to being Season 4 World Champions this weekend. I and many others could talk at length about the incredible subtleties in their play, in fact I have a few more ideas beyond this one already. I chose this to talk about specifically because SSW were kind enough to do it both from a lead and from behind against SHRC this weekend to really demonstrate how they can create advantages from nothing.

In both games one and four White had their level 1 lane swap matched by Royal Club, matching up 2v2 in the top lane. Both times White used that fact alone to create and advantage by having their duo be the first ones to swap back to the bottom side. Each time Mata bought wards and used the fact they were the first to swap back to safely invade SHRC's jungle for vision. 

In game 1 Mata and Dandy invade SHRC's red buff placing a combined total of 5 wards, 3 greens and 2 pinks. Almost immediately after they finish placing the wards Insec shows himself on the one at double golems and Dandy uses that knowledge to dive mid lane and snowball Pawn's Jayce. Pawn used the mid gank to push down his tower and roam top, Dandy used the vision to out maneuver Insec, and bot used the oppressive vision to safely pressure Uzi in the botlane. 

By the time those 5 wards were gone SSW had a 1k gold lead, significant damage on the mid turret which would fall soon after and had used the vision of Insec to gain vision control over the top side of SHRC's jungle as well setting up another tower dive. Still it's easy to downplay the importance of the early swap from Mata by talking about SSW's advantageous lane matchups and the level 1 first blood that helped them afford so many wards. Thankfully White provided us with an example of the same thing but from a position of weakness in game 4. 

This time instead of a first blood advantage and having pressured the lane before the swap it comes after Looper's Kassadin died to a gank bottom while Imp died in the 2v2 top. Off the back of the 2v2 death Mata backs and again he uses the fact that by being first to switch there's no threat of the enemy bot lane collapsing to invade for vision. He's not able to illuminate it as completely as the previous example but he still gets a strategically placed ward. 

Moments later that ward spots a level 6 Insec passing by to setup for his first Pantheon gank. When he walks past SSW ping him and Pawn cheats down from the mid lane while Dandy clears red. A few seconds after they spotted level 6 Insec heading towards bot White signals clear understanding of what's happening as they ping the bot lane where SHRC's duo is pushing the minions into the tower as hard as they can. Thanks to the early warning of Mata's deep ward Insec is barely able to get off his combo before Dandy's Rengar snarls out of the jungle to turn the gank into a disaster for SHRC, and shortly after Pawn arrives to clean up Uzi and take the dragon with his teammates. 

In game 1 Samsung White used the early swap back to slowly build one small advantage onto another. In game 4 they used the same move to turn an early deficit into a punishing advantage.In both scenarios Mata knew that by swapping first he was safe to invade for deep vision. That vision gave Samsung White the knowledge needed to make plays from ahead or behind, and build advantages from nothing. 

How OMG used champion select to sweep Najin Shield

Despite being a clean 3-0 sweep the quarterfinal series between OMG and Najin White Shield was an absolute treat to watch. Both teams had high points in the games from Shield's early dominance game 1 and Watch's incredible smite steals to Cloud's ridiculous Janna play, Cool's dominating performance against Ggoong, and OMG's decisive calls. Above all else though the series really showed how important a good champion select phase is to victory. Every single game OMG was able to out maneuver Shield in champion select, securing themselves comfort and counter picks while also punishing members of Shield who had smaller champion pools.

Game 1:

Game 1 picks and bans. Source: LoLesports.

Looking at just the bans we can get a clear idea of what each team is focusing on for champion select. NWS bans Maokai, a common meta pick and something Save rarely plays, Jayce a target ban against Cool that will end up being used later in the series, and a priority pick for both teams Ryze. We can see that Shield is trying to make sure they make good use of their first pick advantage. Ryze and Zed have 100% pick or ban rate in Shield's games during the Korean regionals and group stages. Ryze was also a 100% pick or ban for OMG's games in the Chinese regionals and group stages. By taking Ryze of the table Shield intends to win themselves the only contested pick. Considering both Zed and Ryze have been hotly contested by most teams in the tournament it seems like a sound move to ban Ryze and secure Zed, it's also Shield's first big mistake.

Unlike for Shield Zed has a sub 50% pick or ban rate for OMG's games with OMG only playing it twice in 12 games between their regional qualifiers and Worlds group stage. Not only that but when OMG played it they did not first pick zed, they saved it for much later in the rotation. This means Zed was not only not contested, but also something OMG feels comfortable playing against.

On OMG's side they ban two meta bans Zilean and Alistar that no one wants to deal with, and then use their final ban to target Gorilla's Thresh. They then use their own first rotation to secure Janna away from Gorilla. This does a couple of major things for OMG, first it pushes Gorilla off his comfort champions. Gorilla played 11 of the 16 games during Korea regionals and groups on either Janna or Thresh. Secondly, it also counter picks the Zed for team fights, Janna's shield and Ultimate are great tools to help teammates survive a Zed all in and Cloud would make full use of them throughout the series.

Shield knowing they're going to have issues team fighting with the Zed against a Janna build a reasonable 1-3-1 split pushing comp. The idea being that Zed and Kassadin get rolling early and split while the mobility of Kha'Zix and Corki with the peel of Morgana keep them safe. Unfortunately for them OMG also knows this and respond with a counter pick Ahri who can shut down Zed early and get picks on any Shield member foolish enough to try split pushing, and their own powerful split pusher with a much better early game Irelia. This gave OMG enough early power to stop Shield snowballing and enough pick pressure to force Shield into a difficult choice between dying trying to split push or struggling to team fight effectively against a stronger 5v5 comp. The game was actually quite close in large part to some incredible early pressure in the jungle from Watch but OMG's decisive moves and Cloud's vision control kept them in it long enough to overcome the early setbacks and take the victory their champion select phase had crafted for them.

Game 2:

Game 2 picks and bans. Source: LoLesports

In game two we can see clear adaptation in bans from Shield, they realized that while OMG has played Maokai it's not an overly likely pick for either team and removed it from their bans. They've also correctly identified Gogoing and Loveling as major players in OMG's first victory and removed the champions used so effectively by them. Finally they adopted the meta Zilean ban that's basically mandatory if you don't want to deal with a first pick Zilean. This time Shield is trying to stop OMG from getting the advantage with first pick by leaving up a lot of contested champions. They intend for OMG to pick Ryze, Kha'Zix, or Zed first and leave the other two for Shield. It clearly works as they secure Zed and Kha'Zix but again they've failed to account for how much priority OMG gives to those champions. Loveling had already shown he's willing to run other champions into Kha'Zix, and again OMG doesn't put much stock in Zed, the result is OMG gets one of the most contested picks for both teams, Ryze, almost for free.

OMG's bans don't change much switching to blue side. They keep the Alistar meta ban, and continue to target Gorilla's champion pool with Thresh. The one major change is moving Lulu into their bans. mostly done thanks to Shield banning away the Zilean that OMG had banned on red side, but also a reasonable target ban against Ggoong. The Lulu is not an integral part of OMG's champ select here but removing her as a potential flex pick made the Zed even more predictable and removed a counter to the burst they'd eventually build into their team comp.

This time around OMG gets the biggest contested pick of the series in Ryze. Again they counter the Zed pick with Janna and due to Shield's bans this time they bring Rengar for pick and engage potential instead of the Lee Sin. OMG builds a really good all around counter to what Shield is trying to do, countering the Zed all-in, having good siege, incredible burst potential, plenty of disengage, and even a late game Ryze that will make it impossible for Zed to split push. Shield again doesn't have an answer they put together a sort of awkward 1-3-1 comp but it's more of a weird poke siege comp due to the fact Save builds Nidalee as an AP top. The game ends up dragging on longer than it should have due to some incredible smite steals from Watch, but apart from the stolen Baron buffs the entirety of game 2 is as heavily in OMG's favor as the champ select.

Game 3:

Game 3 picks and bans. Source: LoLesports

Game 3 is an oddball honestly, it's the closest Shield comes to actually winning champion select, but ends up in a comp filled with stuff they're not comfortable on. The bans from Shield are good, they remove a lane dominant comfort pick from each of OMG's carries. They also assemble a strong 5v5 team comp with decent laning and excellent late game scaling. If it were any other team I'd say Shield had the edge in champion select here. The problem is, all but Lee Sin are champions Shield rarely if ever plays. Nami is Gorilla's 4th support behind game 2's braum, Ggoong and Zefa rarely played their picks in the regionals or group stages, and Save has neither played Maokai before nor is he known for his tank play. Shield has also again made some champion priority mistakes here, they take Lee Sin as the first pick giving Gogoing Ryze for the second time and failing to recognize Loveling is content to play Kha'Zix into Lee Sin. 

OMG reverted back to their red side bans from game 1 and used the same champion select strategy. This time they weren't able to bait Ggoong into a 3rd straight Zed vs Janna match, but they were able to secure Gogoing's Ryze again and steal away Zefa's Corki he'd played much of worlds on. This resulted in OMG mostly assembling the same style of comp they'd had the first two games despite the Lucian ban. Lane dominant ADC, Gogoing on a comfort scaling champion, play making jungler, and Cloud being an absolute nuisance on Janna. The one big weakness in OMG's game 3 lineup was picking up Zed last pick. The Zed didn't really do anything for their team comp. Something like a Yasuo which Cool had shown before likely would have fit the comp better but Cool seems hesitant to play it after his poor performance on Yasuo in groups.

Despite the fact Shield had the more well rounded comp it was still clear that OMG won the champion select due to their superior familiarity with the strategy and champions their composition involved. OMG were able to secure multiple contested picks, several of which were comfort champions for their star players, as well as force Shield into not just unfamiliar champion picks but also a strategy far different from that they'd attempted to build throughout the tournament. The relative strength of Shield's well rounded team did allow them to stage a bit of a comeback in the middle of the game but it was simply not enough to contest with the confidence of OMG on so many comfort champions. 

Throughout the series OMG showed superior champion select. It's clear OMG did their research understanding that Shield will first pick Zed given the opportunity, and exploited that fact as well as the limited champion pools of Watch and Gorilla to build advantages in their picks. They also made key adaptations like taking Zefa's Corki in response to Shield's Lucian ban to further push Shield out of their comfort zone. It's clear OMG's champion select was much better researched and prepared than that of NWS, and it was a key factor in OMG sweeping the series. 

Worlds Quarterfinal Predictions

Samsung White vs Team Solo Mid

I know I got bit once before claiming TSM had no chance, but I really feel like saying anything else here would just be hopeless NA fanboyism. TSM may have managed to squeak through to first seed in NA but they struggled in their group ending 1-1 with SHR and an SK that had to play one of their matchups with a substitute. Meanwhile Samsung White dominated their group even against EDG who've had SHR's number all LPL long, and SSW are the heavy favorites for the entire tournament. White has demonstrated better team work and better champion select than TSM. White's bot lane out classes TSM's by a monstrous margin, their Jungler is far and away better both at understanding and working from the jungle than Amazing, and solo laners Pawn and Looper are world class players who are unlikely to allow Dyrus or Bjergsen to put the rest of TSM on their backs.

Predicting Samsung White 3-0 the match is the only realistic option to those of us without access to time machines.

Samsung Blue vs Cloud9

Where Samsung White is incredibly strong, Samsung Blue has shown some weaknesses including dropping a group stage game to Fnatic. Some people mistake Blue for the better of the Samsung teams because they've managed to beat White in the team kill matches but they have clear weaknesses in champ select and their early game play. They also clearly have issues dealing with chaotic games as Fnatic and KTA have both proven.

Cloud 9 has managed to earn the honor of being the first NA team to take a game off a Korean team in high level play since 2012 with their victory over Najin White Shield to secure a ticket to the quarterfinals. In their games against Shield C9 demonstrated a clear understanding of the sort of chaotic split push pressure that Blue has proved weak against in the past. Cloud9's players are also not especially out matched by Blue's, Deft is not particularly aggressive in the bot lane, Dade's champion pool is small enough he can be pushed out of his comfort zone, and Balls has successfully proven he's a world class top laner. The big problem for C9 is they've been a bit terrible on red side lately, their Champ select suffers and it negatively effects the rest of their play.

I'm still not willing to call this series in C9's favor, but I think they've got the tools to give Blue trouble and take at least 1 game. 3-1 Samsung Blue.

Star Horn Royal Club vs Edward Gaming

This one is a bit hard to call as there's not a lot of direct confrontations in the LPL to draw from. SHR did have better group stage results but they didn't face an opponent as strong as SSW nor did they openly admit to concentrating on the bracket stage instead of groups. Namei seemed to struggle a bit in group stages as some positioning errors led to a tie breaker game against AHQ, he shaped up in the final game though which is a good sign for EDG.

EDG in the group stage seemed to have better champ select than SHR and they're less reliant on Namei getting ahead than SHR seems to be on Uzi. Also important to remember EDG did beat out SHR in their last meeting to take the 1st seed from China.

I think this one has some potential to go either way but EDG are the favorites given past results and the relative strengths of the teams. 3-1 EDG.

Najin White Shield vs OMG

Shield looked great in their gauntlet run to qualify as the 3rd seed from Korea, but their groups performance got a little spotty. They completely misprepared for more than one game letting major comfort picks like Irelia, Lee Sin, and Rumble through against Alliance and C9. Their champ select disaster resulted in two dropped games, and the one against Alliance ended up being a perfect game at that. Shield also looked very uncomfortable dealing with chaotic split push when they faced Cloud9.

OMG also suffered problems during their group stage games. Cool and Dada777 have not looked very good against their competition. Dada777 especially has become a glaring weakness for OMG with his limited effective champion pool which unfortunately lines up with Shield's star support Gorilla. OMG won't be able to exploit the weaknesses in Shield as well thanks ot their own weak support needing the same picks Gorilla uses to be effective. While OMG did show some ability to create chaos against their opponents they also quite literally escaped groups by a single auto attack.

OMG should be able to put up some fight against NWS but so long as they continue using Dada777 their bot lane will be an ever present liability against Gorilla. 3-1 NWS.

Mid Hecarim, it's not just horsing around

When Keane locked in Hecarim for the mid lane against CLG in game 5 I like many others was shocked. Hecarim was an out of favor melee jungler known for his speedy ganks facing the ranged wave clear machine of Ziggs in lane. After watching the game multiple times and reading up on some lane Hecarim guides though I not only know what Keane saw in the pick, but also where things went wrong for Curse Academy that game.

THE GOOD:

Hecarim has a shockingly strong laning phase. Where most melee champions struggle early on in lane without some form of ranged harass/farming spell Hecarim doesn't seem to suffer the same problems. Keane's starting item choice of boots combined with Hecarim's high base move speed and his passive that ignores minion unit collision made it shockingly easy for Hecarim to avoid most of the ranged harass coming out of Link's Ziggs. On top of his ability to dodge harass Hecarim brings a spammable aoe damage tool to both shove the wave and harass his opponent, as well as self sustain from his W. When put all together Hecarim not only survives the lane but actually does quite well managing to put harass back onto Ziggs and only falling behind in farm from jungler pressure and when roaming.

Lane Hecarim solves one of the champion's biggest issues, gold income. One of the major issues with Hecarim as a jungler that saw him fall out of favor was the gold flow of the jungle. Hecarim needs expensive items like Trinity Force to be fully effective and it takes forever to farm up that much gold as a jungler. Dedicated farm from a lane, helped along by his surprisingly good lane phase means Hecarim can hit those item break points quick enough to be relevant in the mid game. Hitting his big damage items quicker means opponents have less defenses and Hecarim can do the ridiculous 50% hp burst hits like we saw Keane do to Dexter 17 minutes into their game 5.

Even as a laner Hecarim's speed makes for impressive roams. As a jungler Hecarim's speed was a prized part of his kit, allowing him to zip through enemy wards and be on someone before they could react. Though moving from a lane makes him a bit more predictable that speed for Hecarim is still there allowing impressive freedom for the post 6 roams to put the rest of his lanes ahead. In this way Hecarim works a lot like Twisted Fate pick, he farms his way to level 6 as quickly as possible then roams to build advantages elsewhere on the map.

Hecarim is a strong split pusher. His spammable Q and high move speed allows him to shove waves into towers quickly and safely a must for any split pusher. Not settling for just shoving around minions though Hecarim is also capable of putting down incredible burst and chase onto someone caught alone trying to shove back his minion waves. We saw the ridiculous burst Keane put onto Dexter before he'd even finished his Trinity Force. That instant burst potential means Hecarim's split pushing forces a lot of enemy resources to come deal with him.

THE BAD:

Hecarim is about as melee as you can get with only small AoEs on his abilities all of which are targeted around himself. This means Hecarim is not very good at sieging objectives. That can be a problem as the game goes late and you're forced into sieging the enemy's inhibitor turrets, as well as it changes the dynamic of the team comp you build around him. Being very melee means it's easier for defending opponents to land poke and ranged CC to kill you under turret. So Hecarim needs to fight away from enemy turrets, and a team that helps him catch the enemy when they venture out for neutral objectives like dragon or baron.

His late game is nothing to brag about. Hecarim's big power spike is the Trinity Force which sets up his mid game nicely and helps his mixed AP and AD scaling. It also means that he will not be as effective in the late game. He can continue to stack glass cannon and hope to finish out the game quickly while he's still far enough ahead the other team can't build defensive items, or become sort of a utility semi-tanky split pusher and flanking initiator, but either way he'll pale in comparison to late game monsters like Ryze.

Head on team fights are terrible for Hecarim. He's too  fast, his big initiation tool sends the enemies running away from him, and no matter how fed he is he'll never be as tanky as someone like Mundo. That means if Hecarim attempts to simply fight a head on team fight by running straight at the enemy he'll both run the enemies away from his team, and out run his own team, leaving him stranded in the middle of the other team with no backup and not nearly enough effective health to get out. You can deal with that by getting flanking team fights, but you need vision denial and room to move about to get a proper flanking team fight, which leads to the next problem.

When Hecarim falls behind it's hard to recover. It's hard for him to engage in heads up team fights, he needs vision control to either team fight properly or split push, his biggest power spike is his Trinity Force completion which typically comes first, he can't siege very well, and is about as Melee as you can get. All this adds up to Hecarim being mostly useless when he falls behind. He won't be able to split push, engage fights, or be much use in siege defense, from behind.

WHERE IT WENT WRONG:

So we've got the good and bad of the pick out of the way and we can see Curse Academy definitely went to work making use of the good parts of mid Hecarim. By 18 minutes Keane had done reasonable in lane against Link's Ziggs, and used the impressive speed and burst of Hecarim to roam and rack up 5 early kills before even finishing his Trinity Force. The biggest missteps for Curse Academy were actually in champion select. We heard in an All Chat segment that they were determined to play the mid Hecarim since they'd prepared it but their composition didn't really set it up as well as they hoped.

Seconds before going "Woah! what?" Source: Lolesports

Curse Academy built a cheesy speed buff composition to boost the Hecarim but few of their champs were set to spike at the same time as Hecarim and they weren't particularly good at the mid game picks he'd need to avoid his problematic sieging. Instead of trying to build a speed buff comp they'd have likely been better suited building a pick/disengage comp around it. So instead of Zilean we'd want Janna, Nami, or Thresh support for crowd control(CC) and disengage. An Elise pick instead of the Lee Sin for jungle would sync nicely with the pick comp goals as well as make up for Hecarim's sieging a bit, all while still keeping within the new trinity of competitive junglers. The Lulu top is actually decent for a Hecarim pick/disengage comp considering the meta at the time of this game, though I'd have liked a Corki for ADC to better synergize with Hecarim's power spike timing. With our new Lulu, Elise, Hecarim, Corki, Janna/Nami/Thresh comp we still use Hecarim's early roam power to help build everyone to their mid game spikes quicker but there's far more weaknesses than the one CA built. We've now got CC for picks, extra siege potential from Corki and Elise to make up for Hecarim's lack, and the potential for both a 1-3-1 or 4-1 split push where the core group has enough safety from Support ultimate and crowd control, Elise cocoon, and Corki's leap away that they can safely avoid an enemy engage onto them.

Curse Academy's team comp wasn't the only problem in champion select though, the team CLG had assembled was also very problematic for Hecarim. CLG had built a decent team fighting and sieging comp with both incredible late game scaling and plenty of ability to stall the game if it falls behind. With Ziggs, Ryze, and Tristana they had plenty of wave clear in case of falling behind to stall out Curse Academy long enough for those three to out scale the opposition. To make things worse Ziggs' near global range ultimate also meant CLG had strong answers to both the roaming and split pushing potential of Hecarim. Ziggs could use his ultimate to get involved with other lanes without having to keep up with Hecarim's impressive speed and shut down split push attempts with relative ease. When ahead CLG's comp is also excellent in team fights, with an impressive amount of AoE as well as Kha'Zix and Tristana's ability to reset their jumps and keep pursuing with each kill, and sieging turrets thanks to the high range and poke of Tristana, Ziggs, and Kha'Zix. Before Hecarim had even been hovered by Curse Academy CLG had built a comp that was good at countering Hecarim's strengths and stalling long enough to utilize their own.

There were some errors made in game as well by Curse Academy but those were far less relevant to their success in the game than their unfortunate champion select phase. CLG had a comp well built to counter Hecarim's strong points and weather the mid game storm of CA. On Curse Academy's side they not only let through problematic answers to Hecarim they also failed to build a comp that truly took advantage of the champion's strengths.

Worlds Group stage predictions

Group A: 1st Samsung White, 2nd Edward Gaming

Samsung White is the favorite of many for the entire tournament as one of the two best teams from Korea and EDG is the #1 seed from China a region that has placed 2nd behind Korea in most international competition for the last year. Their opponents in the group are the weaker of the two Wildcard teams and the 2nd seed from SEA the region that finished dead last in All Stars Paris invitational. I highly doubt anyone has different predictions for this group. 

Group B: 1st Team Solo Mid, 2nd SK Gaming 

This prediction is probably the one that will get me the most flak. After all I just admit that China has basically been 2nd behind Korea in all tournaments outside IEM for the last year, how could SHRC fail to escape this group with no Korean team? I've been watching some LPL games to prep for Worlds and what I saw gave me a lot of confidence for LCS teams. The Chinese teams have serious problems in their vision and map control and a particularly poor understanding of proper 2v1 starts. If the SK we saw all playoffs, and the TSM we saw against C9 in the finals show up for the group stage matches SHRC will be in a world of trouble. TSM and SK both demonstrated much better 2v1, vision, and map control than anything SHRC showed in their recent matches. SHRC might have a mechanical edge but LCS teams have been forged in a meta that considers kills mere tools to securing a bigger objective. Both SK and TSM have been trained all season to crush the kinds of teams coming out of the LPL, they have the tools in place all that's left is for them to make it happen. 

Group C: 1st Samsung Blue, 2nd Fnatic

Do I even need to explain SGB? #1 seed from Korea, heavily favored, the only team people think could stand up to sister team White. 

The real talk is about Fnatic and much like with SK in group B I believe Fnatic has an edge over LMQ and OMG due to watching recent LPL games. Fnatic has always had incredible team play and strong vision control. They have struggled some this season but that's even more reason to value them above OMG and LMQ as a Fnatic without summer split issues would have been just as favored to win this group due to their map and vision control advantage, without having been forced to improve by disappointing results in EU playoffs. Fnatic has made very smart moves since playoffs ended showing up to scrim with NA playoff teams at PAX and then moving on to Korea where they added Toyz to their coaching staff to prepare for the tournament. What we've seen suggest Fnatic is working out the kinks before the groups start on the 18th and if they do it's hard to see them landing anywhere but 2nd in group c. 

Group D: 1st Najin White Shield, 2nd Cloud9

Apart from Korea being the heavy favorites in this tournament it's hard to deny how good Shield looked as they ran the gauntlet defeating teams like OGN Summer champions KTA and S3 World champions SKT T1 K to secure the final seed from Korea. Shield is not as untouchable seeming as the Samsung teams in this tournament but their recent performances are enough to convince me and many others that they'll be able to hold off the LCS power house teams long enough to take the 1st seed out of group D. 

C9 is hardly a favorite for this group, many people admit they've got a decent shot against Alliance but Alliance is still the favorite of many due to the many times EU has come up ahead of NA in the past. On close inspection though it's clear Cloud9 should hold the edge in the matchup. Meteos and Balls are stronger players than their Alliance counterparts, C9 has had significantly more experience both regional and international as a unit, and Cloud9 is far more decisive in their wins often closing games they're clearly ahead in 5-10 minutes faster than Alliance in similar scenarios. It's these small edges that should be enough for Cloud 9 to make up for what Hai might lack in the head to head against Froggen and push them over into the 2nd place finish in group D. 

Riot's new more aggressive region lock is a mistake

Riot has just announced a new policy where 3/5ths of an LCS team needs to meet "residency requirements" in the region they wish to play. They haven't released the exact residency requirements yet but they make it quite clear it's intended to stop an overflow of foreign players taking over. However foreign players permanently overrunning the LCS is an incredibly unlikely scenario, and this rule to combat that worst case scenario could have negative impacts on potential salaries for the best league players in the world.

The new rule is primarily in place to stop full roster moves, like LMQ and the failed Quantic, as well as stop LCS from becoming what Starcraft 2's WCS has been in recent years with all the regions being filled nearly exclusively with Korean players. That unfortunate scenario for SC2 was caused largely by the fact Blizzard ran the majority of the WCS online. Players could live in Korea, play on the Korean server against other Korean opponents, and simply play the majority of their matches remotely. Because Korea was already established as the strongest region in SC2 the lack of LAN play for the majority of SC2 tournaments meant non-Korean players had to invest significantly more for the same chance to compete. Korean players scrimmed on the Korean servers even when they were participating in the North American region, meaning there was no chance for NA local players to get practice against the caliber of players they'd have to defeat to qualify without moving to Korea. NA players would have to move to Korea and play on the Korean servers just to practice against their potential NA opponents. Because of that disproportionate investment required the scene stagnated and Korea remained on top by virtue of simply having been at the top of the pile from the start.

Back in LCS games are not played over the internet with only a handful of LAN tournaments requiring people to show up, instead they are played live in front of an audience 2-3 days a week for 3 straight months at a time. The fact that the LCS is in its entirety a LAN event means teams and players must move to the LCS region they're participating in. Living locally in the LCS region means they scrim local teams and play on the local soloqueue ladder all against other players who live and play in the LCS region. This means just like how Hai and Froggen elevate their respective regions each time they play soloqueue or scrim another team, foreign players who come to compete in LCS like XiaoWeiXiao do the same for that LCS region. Because the LCS is on LAN when a player is imported to play in the LCS, while they do deny a slot to a local player, they provide more and better practice for local players for the duration of their career in the region.

The pre-existing soft region lock for LCS meant that the influx of foreign talent was a self correcting problem. By virtue of being forced to play against their future competition each foreign player added to an LCS region makes it that much less successful for the next foreign player to move over. In fact we've already hit an early milestone on this progression of the problem fixing itself. So called "C tier" players are no longer viable in NA due to the influx of foreign talent. While super star players like Bjergsen, and Dexter, and "B tier" Chinese players like Vasilii and XiaoWeiXiao have proven NA is not done correcting the problem, other attempts like the failed Quantic team, Amazing, Helios, and Seraph have proven there is verifiable progress towards foreign talents being more expensive than they're worth.

If NA had actually followed the worst case scenario people fear and gotten worse by the early importing of Edward, Bjergsen, and Dexter then subsequent imports Quantic, Amazing, Helios, and Seraph should have been slam dunks to only have to compete against other foreign imports in their lanes. Instead the best of them are middle of the pack NA players. Quantic a team of 5 "C tier" Korean players formed to dominate NA failed to even make the promotion tournament. Helios and Seraph, touted as the conquering Koreans come to dominate NA, shook out to be barely middle of the pack in their respective roles, both outclassed by more than one local NA player. Amazing, TSM's slam dunk don't even need to try him out European jungler import completely collapsed; dragging the entire TSM team down with him for the majority of a split before they could finally train him up to be a reliable asset in time for playoffs.

That leaves Lustboy the newest acquisition for TSM who has certainly out performed former teammate Helios so far in his time in the LCS, and the full Chinese roster LMQ. LMQ actually helps further the point that "C tier" foreign talent is no longer viable as the team contains members from the 6th place LPL team, a member of the S3 Worlds runner up team, and several of the players were rising talents on the verge of breaking out in China. Most of LMQ would likely have found starting positions on teams in China had they stayed. On top of that LMQ while managing to stay near the top in NA has struggled to maintain that position all split long sharing top 2 with no less than 3 other NA teams prior to playoffs, and only barely made worlds as the 3rd seed. LMQ is another strong indication that NA is moving up in overall skill and becoming harder for foreign players to enter and find success. LMQ's move to NA LCS also had the added benefit of directly raising the strength of the challenger scene where most other imports only effected it tangentially through Soloqueue. The split LMQ spent competing in the challenger scene made the teams they faced like up and comers Team 8 that much stronger, and helped forge local rising talent Altec into a top ADCs in the NA LCS.

Recent imports make it readily apparent that high profile expensive moves to nab the best foreign talent will soon be the only way to make importing players more valuable than simply training up a rising star from the local challenger scene. In essence the imports would have to return to what was seen originally, pulling in players widely regarded as the best up and coming talents of their regions like Dexter and Bjergsen where when acquired, or competing away an integral part of one of the strongest teams the region has ever seen like with Edward. These big expensive moves due to the fact they're pulling the top tier highest profile players would be both rarer than the recent rash of imports, and far better for players in all regions. When teams from all over compete to secure a top player of a region like Froggen, not only does Froggen benefit but so do all other players. Froggen gets a huge check to secure him against theoretical offers from the likes of CLG or Curse, and players like Bjergsen get to say "hang on a minute, I'm nearly as good as Froggen and get payed 1/3rd what he does! Pay me more or I'll find someone who will." The expense of securing the best players in the world helps all the players get a better salary, and has the added benefit of further stunting foreign talent imports.

Now this is where the new rule moves from jumping the gun on a pointless rule into a full blown mistake. The drive and desire to secure super stars like Froggen, there by helping to increase theirs and other players salaries world wide, is now severely impeded by this rule. Because no LCS team can have more than 2 non-residents many of the teams with the deepest pockets are taken out of the bidding before it even begins when a must have like Froggen becomes available. Before this rule if Froggen's contract were to expire post worlds and he was still seen as the best in EU he could expect offers from most of the wealthy LCS teams in both regions. However after this rule is in place in the same scenario TSM, CLG, LMQ, and EG would all be incapable of putting forward offers due to their number of non-residents already on  the teams. This means competition for a star player's contract is lower, and as a result what he can expect to receive as a final offer is likely to also be lower than it would be if multiple additional teams were allowed to participate in the bidding.

It's understandable that Riot wants to calm people's fears of another SC2 situation arising but they are fighting against a non-problem with a rule that actively hinders the growth of LoLesports. Still Riot has decided to take action and lots of people are calling out for something to be done, so here's s way Riot could solve this problem without damaging the growth of the scene.

Simply make this rule apply to teams who enter LCS from the challenger scene. Rewrite the rule to require that any team participating in the promotion or expansion tournaments must have a minimum of 3 players who will meet the residency requirements by or before the start of the next split. The rule will function much like the age requirement for challenger teams, it halts full rosters trying to make it in with low investment into the scene, and it doesn't remove some of the richest teams in LCS as potential bidders for the biggest superstar players. It's still unnecessarily fixing a non-problem like the newly debuted rule, but it does it in a less damaging way.

The current iteration of Riot's new rule is a mistake that fixes a problem that will mostly self correct, while impeding growth of the scene. I am certain that if LCS continues it's current growth rate that within the next few seasons (not splits) Riot will be forced to significantly alter if not completely do away with this rule as it not only becomes obsolete but a more significant impediment to the growth of League of Legends as an esport.

LCS Playoff Predictions Review

Now that LCS playoffs are over I'm going to go over my EU and NA quarterfinal predictions as well as those from Gamescom and PAX. I'm going to discuss how I made those predictions, where they went right, where they went wrong, and thoughts on each region's Worlds qualified teams.

The first big thing to talk about when discussing predictions is that it's not something you can ever expect to get 100% correct without a whole lot of luck involved. Everyone from myself to Montecristo to players who'd been scrimming the teams in the finals got some predictions wrong. Because of the limited information we all have available, and the ever present question of player's mentality day of, as well as effectiveness of training and adapting to the patch it is very hard to make anything more than a semi-confident prediction.

While predictions can never be flawless, there is a lot of information available to help improve predictions. I looked at past history between the two teams, accounted for champion select tendencies, as well as strength of team rosters and their specific play styles when making my predictions. When it was a very difficult one to call, like Fnatic vs Alliance, or Dig vs TSM I gave preference to the team which in my opinion had a stronger peak performance with their current roster. In some cases peak performance failed, like in the Dig vs TSM, but in others it helped me properly weight the matchup, as in the case of ROC vs SHC.

EU

SHC vs ROC Prediction: 3-1 ROC, Actual Result: 3-1 ROC

This series went mostly as expected. The one thing I did not expect was SHC to be capable of rallying for game 3, rather than taking an earlier game off and falling to momentum. 

SK vs MIL Prediction: 3=0 MIL, Actual Result: 3=0 SK

I have to admit to a mistake in predicting this series. I didn't give enough weight to how MIL had performed in the final week, a mistake I made multiple times throughout my predictions. I undervalued just how badly MIL had performed in week 11 vs how well SK had performed that same week. Accounting for their difference in results should have adjusted my prediction to a 3-2 in MIL's favor. That prediction still would have been different from the results, but it would have better fallen in line with how the teams had performed throughout the season and accounted for their results only a week before their series. 

SHC vs MIL Prediction: 3-1 SHC, Actual Result: 3-0 SHC

I feel pretty good about this prediction. While I didn't get it exact I correctly noted that if either team went 2-0 up they'd sweep and correctly gave the edge to SHC. I didn't really adjust predictions going into this series, though I likely gave MIL too much credit in spite of their recent performances. 

Fnatic vs ROC Prediction: 3-1 FNC, Actual Result: 3-2 FNC

I'll be honest even as a Roccat fan I never expected them to put up such a wild fight against Fnatic in the semi-finals at gamescom. Overall I feel good about the prediction, Roccat showed up and pushed Fnatic further than most people thought they could and they deserve praise for it, but I think it would have been a bit fanboyish of me to have blindly predicted such a crazy series. 

ALL vs SK Prediction: 3-1 ALL, Actual Result: 3-1 ALL

Nailed it. 

ROC vs SK Prediction: 3-2 ROC, Actual Result: 3-0 SK

This is one of those series that makes it clear why predictions just don't end up being 100% correct without a lot of luck. Roccat has had better champion select than SK for a long time, the teams share a lot of the same problems avoiding either team having obvious significant edges, and ROC had just proved against Fnatic that they were on point at Gamescom and should have pushed SK to the limit. While ROC may not have taken it in the end this series really should have gone all 5 games. Instead Roccat appeared to have spent everything just trying to make it past Fnatic and when they failed they fell apart for the series against SK. 

ALL vs FNC Prediction: 3-2 FNC, Actual Result: 3-1 ALL

While Alliance did hold the head ot head 3-1 over Fnatic this split it felt in large part thanks to Fnatic's All Stars slump at the start. Fnatic was simply not showing up the first few weeks in a lot of peoples opinions. When Fnatic did finally turn it on near the end of the split they were hands down playing on par with Alliance, while having a better champion select phase. Fnatic's superior champion select and the fact they were defending 3 time EU LCS champions weighed it in Fnatic's favor. Instead just like Roccat, it seemed Fnatic was forced to burn everything they had just to make it to the finals against Alliance. I feel like this was another example where a prediction fell apart due to team mentality day of more than incorrectly assessing past results. 

NA

TSM vs Dig Prediction: 3-2 Dig, Actual Result: 3-1 TSM

I feel like not weighing Dig's final week results into this is less of a mistake than it was for MIL's games, but still a definite mistake. I think if I'd retained that lesson from the EU playoffs I might have weighted the series 3-2 for TSM instead of Dig. 

Curse vs CLG Prediction 3-1 CLG, Actual Result: 3-0 Curse

Unlike with Dig I don't think weighing in CLG's performance issues would have been a smart move for this series considering they hadn't been seen since week 10 and spent nearly a month in Korea. By all measure this series should not have gone the way it did. The last time CLG spent a few weeks with coach Montecristo in house they had a dominant performance and sat near the top of the NA LCS standings. Add to that the fact they were practicing in Korea against better scrim partners and it's difficult to reasonably argue that we should have expected CLG to lose, much less fall apart, this series.

Dig vs CLG Prediction: 3-1 CLG, Actual Result: 3-1 Dig

Again I think it would have been a bit unreasonable to predict differently here. Dig's singular working strategy against TSM succeeded thanks to a lack of aggression from TSM, something that CLG had not lacked against Curse even if it hadn't created a win. Dig's champion select also made progressively less sense against TSM where CLG seemed to actually be pulling themselves together a bit over the course of the series but were let down by their actual play and decision making. 

LMQ vs TSM Prediction: 3-0 LMQ, Actual Result 3-2 TSM

Another good example of day of performance making predictions a bit of a crap shoot. TSM did not look any better than they had all split long against Dignitas and LMQ had had their number every time they matched up. I'd hazard to say anyone who predicted this match in TSM's favor after watching TSM vs DIG is guilty of fanboying a bit. The only vaguely reasonable reason to predict difficulty for LMQ was the ownership drama they'd recently been through. Even that didn't seem enough to so heavily set them back though. 

C9 vs Curse Prediction: 3-2 C9, Actual Result: 3-0 C9

Cloud9 is probably the only team I didn't give enough credit to in playoffs this split. Curse had been surging like crazy, there were parallels to other similar team styles matching against each other. I thought that plus C9's continued struggles throughout the split was enough to make it a close match. I did not give the C9 dominance enough credit, peak C9 showed up this series when I didn't think it would and it rolled over Curse. 

Due to there being no break on the weekends and me writing my predictions before hand I didn't make actual predictions for TSM vs C9 or LMQ vs Curse. I didn't expect TSM to come out ahead of LMQ. On twitter though I predicted LMQ taking it over Curse and C9 3-0ing TSM again due to TSM still not looking better against LMQ. I was very happy to be wrong about C9 vs TSM. All credit must be given to TSM for finally looking like a team that could contest for 1st place against C9, both teams played very strong matches and TSM came out the victor.

So there you have it, how I made my predictions, where I think I went wrong, and where I think the unpredictable factors in League made a difference. I intend to make similar predictions for Worlds once more information on matchups are released and hopefully the lessons learned from looking over my predictions this way will mean more accurate predictions in the future.

NA LCS Playoff Preview: PAX

Fifth Place

Counter Logic Gaming vs Dignitas

This is definitely not the 5th place match I was expecting. I predicted both of these teams to win, because both have had the stronger peak performances this split and that is often an important factor when teams get ample time to prepare for a series like this. That same method is how I correctly predicted Roccat beating out SHC in europe, sadly Dig and CLG did not live up to expectations. I will say that Dig came much closer to what I predicted from them than CLG did though.

After watching the quarterfinals this game became rather hard to call. Dignitas had some good team comp ideas but their execution was abysmal. Even in game 1 their split push efforts worked more due to TSM's indecisive shot calling rather than anything specific Dig did, they lost most of the 4v4 split fights but weren't punished for that by TSM. All 4 games Dig had poor team fighting and abysmal vision control against TSM. The main redeeming quality for Dig, apart from Zion's singular adventure in split pushing, was Crumbzz's undeniable baron dominance even going so far as to win a smite war against a Nunu.

CLG on the other hand completely collapsed in their first outing back from Korea. Their game 1 team comp made no sense, running the binary, lane dependent Nunu with 3 losing lanes was doomed from the get go. It only looked vaguely competitive because Curse was struggling to hit their own stride in game 1. Game 2 CLG again seemed to have no idea what they were doing giving Curse repeats on the important parts of their team comp and then giving up multiple early game dragons to set Quas behind while Cop and Voyboy were allowed to become fed monsters with no contest. It wasn't until game 3 that CLG finally appeared to wake up finally banning and picking okay but it wasn't enough as Curse out maneuvered them lvl 1 to get a 3 buff start for Nunu and then compounded their advantage via a misstep from CLG around dragon to close out the series in dominant fashion.

Both teams leading into this are shadows of their former selves and absolutely deserve to land in the 5th place match from the way they played that series. I think objectively though, the edge goes to CLG just barely. While CLG was definitely not playing optimally in their series, they were definitely decisive in their movements. A lack of decisive calls was the only thing that allowed Dig to take a game off TSM and CLG is unlikely to make the mistake of letting Zion split push unanswered. I expect the series to go much like their regular season head to head, 3-1 in favor of CLG. 

Semi-Finals

LMQ vs Team Solo Mid

While my quarter finals preview may not have correctly picked the winner, what I was right about was just how insanely close the series would be between TSM and Dignitas and that to me spells disaster for TSM against second seeded LMQ. 

LMQ did not lose practice from someone renewing their visa, has had a better grasp on new patches, has shown much stronger champion select throughout the split, and they have not dropped a single game to TSM so far. Some people claim LMQ has little experience with best of series but that's also not true as they played several in the challenger scene on their road to the LCS and never once dropped a series. The worst LMQ has performed in a best of series is dropping singular games to the 2nd best challenger team in NA at the time, and it was always obvious over confidence that made them slip up in the one game they lost before tightening right back up and obliterating the remainder of a series. TSM's "historically strong playoff performances" are also utterly irrelevant to the conversation as Wildturtle and Dyrus are the only members still on the team that have seen more than one previous playoffs with TSM. All in all, after watching TSM's sloppy performance against Dignitas the only vague hope they have against LMQ is to pray the recent ownership kerfuffle around LMQ has caused the players significant issues in practice and mentality. 

I really don't think TSM has much hope outside of picking up a single game from LMQ over confidence. I'm calling 3-1 LMQ. 

Cloud9 vs Curse

I will admit despite their 3-1 finish to the season I gave Curse very little credit going into playoffs, but when you consider they had only 5 wins in the first half of the season (14 games!) I'm less crazy than I probably seem now that they've 3-0d into the semi-finals.

Before Curse showed up against CLG I'd have called this series 3-0 for Cloud9 and moved on. Even if C9 has lost a bit of their dominance this split they've retained the exquisite champion select and strong team play that keeps them on top. However C9 has exploitable weaknesses in their early game, a place Curse has been quite strong this split, and more than one of C9's losses have been them getting so far behind early that they simply couldn't catch back up.

We also have an interestingly similar situation recently happen in OGN. KTA a notoriously early game team came up against Samsung Blue a team with weaker early game made up for with strong team play. In the OGN version (SPOILERS!) KTA took the match by forcing it to a game 5 blind pick where they've always had an edge. The NA LCS is now giving us the Hollywood remake in C9 vs Curse, but where KTA pushed to a game 5 blind pick Curse can't so easily force an advantageous situation for them. Cloud9 also does not suffer from the occasional champion select weaknesses SGB has exhibited this season.

If Curse digs down deep and pulls out all their tricks I would not be surprised to see KTA vs SGB 2 Electric Boogaloo C9 vs Curse go 5 games, but I think in the end Cloud9 will still come out on top. I predict 3-2 C9.

Third Place

Team Solo Mid vs Curse

Despite a different team winning than what I predicted, TSM vs DIG still went very much how I expected, super close for no good reason. Meanwhile Curse played better than expected against CLG despite a shaky game 1 and were able to close it out 3-0 which gives me a lot more confidence in this match for Curse.

Throughout the split TSM had this match in their pocket. TSM was the one team Curse just couldn't seem to get a handle on, no matter what they brought to the table TSM walked away with the W. That was until the final week of the regular season. In their 4th and final match up of the regular season Curse absolutely demolished TSM in a 32 minute game. Curse moved from that result to shaping up fast against CLG 3-0 and are now moving into the final weekend of games at PAX looking absolutely on fire. With their strong early game now turning into commanding performances from Cop and Voyboy it seems likely that if Curse can keep their heads in it after losing to C9 that they will dominate a TSM that still hasn't changed after 32 games.

Where Curse looks on fire TSM looks stuck in a rut. Amazing still does not look comfortable outside of his Lee Sin and Elise, dropping a smite war as Nunu and securing zero of the first nine barons against Dignitas in their quarterfinal series. Dyrus seems mostly stuck in the same old champions from the middle of the split reverting to Lulu for most of the games against Dig, and the inclusion of Lustboy has not done much to get Wildturtle out of his slump.

If Curse can deal with the disappointment of losing to C9 it's hard to see how this series can end up in any result other than 3-0 (maybe 3-1) in Curse's favor.

Finals

Cloud9 vs LMQ

Despite Cloud9's struggles that started with Hai's hospitalization, and the hype around Chinese imports LMQ, Cloud9 actually holds the upper hand the head to head 3-1.

Both teams are top of the pile right now and it's easy to see why as their rosters hold a lot of the top 2 players in the region for each position. The real difference between the teams is in how they play. LMQ is unbridled aggression, they ward ahead of them, not behind, they dive your tower, they come at you and they kill you. That same aggression is also sometimes their down fall as it sometimes leads to tunneling on a poor dragon fight or a bad tower dive giving up what advantage LMQ may have gained. Cloud9 is a whole other beast, they like controlled purposeful strikes. Fights with a purpose are the only ones C9 desires, if they can't turn a team fight into a dragon, baron, or tower they're just as happy to fall back and let you pass. 

So far Cloud9's controlled style has won out giving them the lead in the head to head, which means in this series the real decider will be the team's ability to adapt in a best of 5. As of this writing C9 has never been pushed to a 4th game by any team in NA. They have gone to Playoffs #1 seed twice before and have dropped zero games in playoffs. Their record is not as spotless in international tournaments, but they have still proven their ability to change and adapt even outside NA.

LMQ has faced plenty of series before, unlike what many people claimed. However LMQ's multitude of series in the challenger scene is nothing compared to the level of competition they can expect to face against Cloud9. Even against challenger scene teams LMQ dropped some games due to tunneling on Baron or Dragon too hard. LMQ has proven that a bad loss does not rattle them, and that they can adapt in a best of series, but they will have to prove they can keep their play tight and champ select strong against the defending champions.

This series is difficult to call due to how strong both teams are and the differences in play style between single games and a best of 5 series. I think whoever no matter what whoever is the first to go 2 games up will take the series, and due to their head to head I think that team will be C9. I predict C9 3-1. 

NA LCS Playoff Preview: Quarterfinals

Team Solo Mid vs Dignitas

Honestly this series feels like it's going to be much closer than it has any right being. On paper Dignitas is clearly the better team. From adapting to new OP picks, to their sensible picks and bans, to their their often incredible early game roams from Kiwikid, Dig should be considered the clear favorite. What's more Dignitas holds the head to head match up 3-1 over TSM in the regular season. All of that and I still haven't mentioned that TSM lost nearly a week of practice with Amazing in Europe renewing his visa. Still, I can't help but feel the series is tough to call.

Dignitas has hit much better peaks throughout this split; but TSM has been far more consistent. Both teams suffer from serious mistakes in their mid-late game vision and decision making, but TSM has more consistently been able to persevere through those mistakes against the lower tier NA teams. In the end the deciding factor is likely to be champion select, a place that Dignitas has been superior throughout this split. Dig understands both the must pick champions and the weaknesses in TSM's lineup such as Amazing's tendency to fall apart when pushed off the trinity junglers. Dig's tendency to better understand champion select, combined with Amazing losing a week of practice, Lustboy's limited English, and WildTurtle's continued struggles in bot lane should all add together to out weigh Dignitoss' tendency to make poor decisions around Baron.

The inconsistency of both teams is likely to make the series go 5 games. In the end I think Dignitas should take it 3-2.

Curse vs Counter Logic Gaming

Perhaps it's my CLG fan showing through but this series honestly feels like it's CLG's to lose even in the face of Curse's late season surge and 3-1 head to head record against CLG.

Curse surged in the final weeks as CLG slumped, using some interesting strategies like the AD Ttristana mid to snatch a last second 4th place end of the regular season. While Curse has hit their high point pulling out somewhat unusual strategies, CLG's peak this split was entirely about them strategically out playing even the best of NA all across the map. The strategic and rotational play that made CLG a force to be reckoned with during the regular season is what CLG went to Korea to regain. CLG's peak performance this split was unquestionably superior to that of Curse in both map movement and vision control. Now though not only could CLG come back with their slump issues solved, but they've spent the last few weeks learning from some of the best teams in the world while Curse has only had NA opponents to scrim. CLG has all the available tools to bring about a dominant performance in this series, it is simply up to them to use those tools.

While a renewed CLG does have everything it needs to dominate this match up, I don't think it will be a 3-0. There is something to be said for Curse's ability to surprise in champ select. The surprises Curse may have in store could go a long way towards getting them at least 1 game even against Super Saiyan CLG. As a result I predict the series to go 3-1 in favor of CLG. 

EU LCS Playoff Preview: Gamescom

Fifth Place

Supa Hot Crew vs Millenium

I'll be honest I was not expecting this to be the 5th place match. I expected the MIL we had seen for 10 weeks in the regular season to show up and crush a slumping SK. Instead SK still looked kinda slumpy in game 1 but not enough for whatever the heck MIL was doing to be successful. Now we have two teams with really bad champion select phase in the midst of slumps facing off and it's honestly really hard to call. 

Both SHC and MIL face a lot of the same problems, kinda tilty mid laners, tops who fall back to old comfort picks that aren't in the current meta, Jungler's who insist on running tier 2 picks even when the trinity junglers are left open, shaky map control in the mid game, and gods awful champ select. Looking at their head to head doesn't help much either as they sit 2-2. 

I think if either team gets a 2-0 lead the series will be a sweep, but otherwise it'll likely go 3-1. I'm giving the slight edge to SHC simply because MrRallez is more consistent than Creaton right now, and while Rallez doesn't often carry games for SHC up against MIL where the rest of the teams are relatively even he could put the team on his back. 

Semi-Finals

ROCCAT vs Fnatic

I was on the ROC hype train for the quarterfinals and if you don't remember I nailed that prediction, but Fnatic is a whole other ball game. Fnatic holds the head to head against ROC 4-0 which should really give a preview of my prediction.

ROC's champion select skill is really what carried them through against SHC but if I had to pick one team in Europe that had as good or better champion select right now, that team would be Fnatic. Fnatic has the best bot lane in EU, Soaz can absolutely handle himself or even beat Xaxus in top, and while xPeke might not be considered the best mid in EU right now he'll definitely out perform Overpow. All ROC has going for them in this match up is the demi-god of the jungle Jankos, but when all his lanes are in trouble without Cyanide interfering it will be hard for Jankos to do much of anything. 

I think because it's a series there's a reasonable chance of ROC taking a game off Fnatic with proper adapting in champion select, but the series is almost assuredly going to end in Fnatic's favor. I predict 3-1 Fnatic.

Alliance vs SK Gaming

SK absolutely looked better than expected against SHC, but problems with their champion select and early-mid game decision making were still apparent. Going against the top seeded team in the EU LCS it's hard to see how SK can come out ahead. 

Alliance really holds all the cards this match up. Froggen will dominate Jesiz in mid, Candypanda will be hard pressed to come out on top of Tabzz, and while Shook has some issues with Jungle prioritization Svenskeren has the same issues but without the part where it somehow works. However Alliance does have a slight problem with closing out games, this entire split they've allowed obviously won games to go on an extra 10 minutes and against a team like SK that is rather good in the late game that can be a problem if SK can stall a game to that point.  

It would not be surprising to see Alliance's tendency to let games go on too long result in them dropping a game to SK, but otherwise I expect them to take the series quite handily. 3-1 Alliance. 

Third Place

ROCCAT vs SK Gaming

 This should honestly be the closest match outside the finals in EU.

Both teams are surging out of slumps, both teams have experience with best of 5 series. SK has the superior carry laners Jesiz is far from the best in EU but Overpow is arguably the weakest individual player, similarly Candypanda has his positional problems but his champion diversity and skill ceiling are greater than Celaver. Just like against SHC though, ROC have a far superior jungler, stronger support player, and equal or possibly better top laner. ROCCAT also have a superior champion select though the advantage is not nearly as strong as it was for them against SHC, it could still end up being a deciding factor in a few of the games.

This series should be very close with things like how well Jankos can pressure early, and how Candypanda is performing being critically important. I honestly expect it to go all 5 games, I want to say ROC take it 3-2 but that prediction is just barely. I absolutely would not be surprised to see it go 3-2 in SK's favor.

Finals

Fnatic vs Alliance

I don't think I'm shocking anyone by predicting the two best teams in EU LCS end up facing each other for top seed at Worlds, this match has been heavily predicted for a few weeks now, even more so once both locked up the bye for quarterfinals. 

Alliance currently holds the head to head 3-1 over Fnatic, and they have Froggen living up to the hype as the best mid laner in EU going for them. Still, you have to bet on Fnatic for this series. Fnatic has more experience in best of series than Alliance, they've been together longer, they have the edge in champion select with Cyanide better understanding the jungle than Shook, and to top it off Fnatic is the defending 3 time LCS split champions. 

I think Alliance will put up a monumental fight and make the series quite close, but I do think Fnatic will take it 3-2. 

Chances at Worlds

The format for Worlds has been announced and this year will have all teams participating in the group stages, 4 groups of 4 with the top 2 of each group advancing to the bracket stage. That means getting the first seed won't give Fnatic a bye straight into the group stage like it did last year, but it does mean Fnatic would avoid facing the #1 seed from NA, Korea, or China which can be invaluable. Both Fnatic and Alliance are strong enough to escape groups, especially if they're lucky enough to land in one of the groups with only 1 team from Korea/China. The EU 3rd place team, regardless if it's ROC or SK is unlikely to advance in my opinion, but that's okay because the group stage experience will still be incredibly valuable to them and if they make good use of it they could come back an even scarier team for the spring split. 

EU LCS Playoff Preview: Quarterfinals

Supa Hot Crew vs ROCCAT

Despite the fact that SHC has sat significantly higher in the standings than ROC throughout the LCS season these teams are actually a lot closer than they appear. The head to head between the teams is 2-2, ROCCAT has been improving as the split progressed and SHC has dealt with some issues and a bit of decline as the split came to an end.

When comparing the teams straight across it’s plain to see that SHC holds the better carry players. MrRallez has routinely performed strong in SHC games despite their revolving door of support players and seems able to comfortably use any ADC the team needs, where Celaver has had some noticeable gaps in what he’s comfortable on in the LCS as well as a larger number of lack luster performances. Mid lane is a similar story, Selfie often hits higher peaks on his limited champion pool, but Overpow is impossible to ban out and has far fewer low points than the somewhat tilt prone Selfie.

Meanwhile ROCCAT boasts what is arguably the best jungler in the EU LCS. It’s absolutely true that SHC’s Impaler has grown a lot from his poor showing last split but he simply pales in comparison to Jankos. Jankos has demonstrated incredible ability on all of the trinity junglers (Evelynn, Lee Sin, Elise), helped his team to generate the most first bloods in the entire LCS, and been the primary factor in ROCCAT’s tendency to have a strong early game. 

On top of their superior jungler ROC also boast a much better ability to adapt to the changing meta in recent weeks, remember ROC understood and showcased both Xerath and Maokai before they were picked up in Korea and made popular. ROC also has the better champion select phase showing similar champ select values to some of the teams with the absolute best champion selection in the world like Samsung Galaxy White, SKT T1 K, Cloud 9, and Fnatic, where SHC has repeatedly shown champion select mistakes from over valuing Jarvan to randomly defaulting back to old comfort picks like Mimer's Shyvana. 

If both teams come into this match on top form ROCCAT's superior champ select, adaptability, Jankos' ridiculous ability to generate first bloods, Selfie's tendency to tilt, and the fact MrRallez has rarely been able to solo carry a game for SHC should add up to a 3-0 result for ROCCAT. However, it's been awhile since we've seen ROC's best and I expect they'll still have some struggles with their mid game decision making. I expect SHC to take either game 1 or game 2 off ROC and make the series a close 3-1 in favor of ROCCAT.

SK Gaming vs Millenium

Just like the other quarterfinal match SK and MIL sit 2-2 in the head to head for this split, but unlike the other quarterfinal this one seems a lot more cut and dry.

SK has fallen off immensely from the start of the split where their map movement and ability to play the 2v0 double jungle meta was able to make up for their weaker laners. SK's champion select is abysmal often allowing the "OP" champions like Kass, Lee Sin, or Gragas to not only slip through but go completely unpicked even after it's become clear the "OP" champion would be a direct counter to the team comp their opponent was putting together. Similarly the meta shift towards immobile carries has had a disastrous effect on Candypanda who has demonstrated a serious issue with his team fight positioning making champions like Kogmaw even harder than it already is for SK to execute properly.

Contrast that with Millenium who spent their time between splits learning how to close games and came back a scary opponent for any team in the EU LCS. MIL has stayed rather consistent in their performances this entire split using their preference for pick comps to secure Kerp and Creaton places in the top 5 FantasyLCS scorers as well as a respectable amount of wins for the team.

I simply don't see a way for SK to win this series outside of a miracle and I'd honestly even be shocked to see them pick up 1 game. I expect MIL to sweep the series 3-0. 

FantasyLCS week 10, Who Do I Start?

With two weeks to go we're down to the wire on FantasyLCS and so it's out with just the risky picks and now it's time to talk about anyone who's a good bet this week.

In EU:

Fnatic and Alliance are generally pretty good bets in EU. This week though they face off against each other and it's generally not smart to bet on both sides of the coin if you cant ensure it'll be a back and forth points explosion like some of the more ridiculous Crs vs C9 games. Fnatic vs Alliance could be a barn burner, it could be a 1 sided stomp, it's hard to tell in advance. Both teams are safe bets so if you're not stuck deciding between them I'd be confident in either set of players. If you're forced to choose between an Alliance player and Fnatic player though, I'd say run the Fnatic player as they're on a bigger up swing as both team and players right now.

ROCCAT and SHC members are both looking good this week for the same reason. Both teams look for the most part on the upswing, despite ROCCAT's score they did play much better last week than in previous weeks, and both face a struggling SK and a floundering Gambit.

Finally there's Millenium who while not having the easiest schedule this week, they face Fnatic on day 2, are generally good bets. Creaton was the highest scoring player last week, both Creaton and Kerp still sit as 2 of the highest total points generators for FantasyLCS. It's hard to ever discount them as good picks.

In NA:

LMQ are top of the table and ridiculous points generators. XiaoWeiXiao and Vasilii round out the top 5 total points scorers for FantasyLCS. Less talked about though is support Mor who has been quite the incredible scorer lately including over 44 points last week as a support. On top of their habit of generating lots of points LMQ also has a decent schedule facing CoL, who they're 3-0 over so far, and C9 who they've gone 1-2 against so far in close games.

If you believe in Curse's whackadoodle ability to womp top teams this is probably the time to start them as they face CLG (2-1) and EG (1-2) this week. But remember it's a risk if the good curse shows up you can expect Voyboy, Quas, and Dominate to top the points for the week much like they did last week, if the bad curse shows up though you can expect abysmal single digit numbers.

TSM is a big question mark this week. They face CLG (1-2) who's been slumping recently and EG (3-0) so in theory they should at least hit decent numbers. It's hard to predict though as they've made a roster change bringing in former Blaze support Lustboy. What is for certain though is BENCH GLEEB! Since Gleeb is no longer starting he wont score you any points, time to grab up someone else until Lustboy becomes available for use next week.

Speculation Zone: Lustboy has been headed to TSM for awhile.

Let me first preface this by reinforcing that like the title states, this is speculation based on available facts. These conclusions are NOT confirmed, nor should we ever expect them to be.

It's no secret that the community at large was skeptical when TSM announced Gleeb as their new support at the start of the summer split. Gleeb was a largely unproven challenger scene support who had to fill the shoes of Xpecial, who was at the time widely regarded as one of if not the best support in the NA LCS. Despite Gleeb making a ton of progress in his 9 weeks of NA LCS play it's painfully obvious to everyone that TSM has not lived up to expectations for this split.

While TSM does sit tied for 2nd in the standings it's almost entirely off the back of being consistent against the worst teams in the league. Against the other 4 top teams TSM has a disheartening 3-9 record this split. Their inability to succeed regularly against the best teams in the league is what had many write them off the World Championship predictions entirely. It was painfully clear that if TSM wanted to have a good shot at defeating at least two of those top teams to even secure the 3rd place ticket to Worlds something had to change.

When some cryptic clues began to surface the fans went to work trying to tell what changes could be in store for TSM. What resulted was the theory that former CJ Entus Blaze support Lustboy could be joining TSM. All parties were quick to downplay the idea and many people cited the fact that it would be a terrible move to make a mid season roster swap if you're hoping to make playoffs and Worlds. After the standard round of denials things went quiet for a bit and everyone assumed it was just a rumor that got out of control, but then the funniest thing happened. This week TSM actually announced Lustboy has joined their starting roster.

Here's where the speculation comes in. It's hard to believe that those who first theorized Lustboy heading to TSM a month in advance of the announcement could have been so spot on with their prediction when it was supposedly unthinkable at the time. A more likely answer is that TSM, well aware of the dangers of a mid season roster swap the critics pointed out, began tentative talks with Lustboy a month ago. Once informed that playoffs would be at PAX again this year, and that there'd be a 2 week break between regular season and playoffs, TSM set about acquiring Lustboy with intent to delay his joining the team until the best possible date for the team.

The TSM roster while not a contender for Worlds was still a decent roster, and importantly it was still incredibly consistent against the bottom 3 teams in NA. Even a month ago it was becoming readily apparent that the TSM roster could secure at minimum the 6th playoff spot simply off the back of their victories over the lower tier teams who were starved for wins this split. So a quite sensible plan ensues, Lustboy is hired by TSM, though not publicly, with intent to delay him until TSM locks up their playoff spot or until the deadline for acquiring new players, July 29th according to the LCS rulebook. With this plan TSM could minimize potential damage of a mid season roster swap, and still have at least 3 weeks to whip the new team into shape for playoffs.

So if TSM planned this for the last month and the deadline isn't until after the next LCS week, why are they breaking out Lustboy now? Because as of their victory over compLexity last Sunday TSM has now officially locked down their playoff spot. TSM sits tied for 2nd in the NA LCS standings at 13-9 and 7th place CoL sits at 7-15. If TSM dropped all 6 remaining games, and compLexity won all 6 of their remaining games CoL could only tie TSM for 6th place. However as TSM holds the head to head record 4-0 over CoL they would automatically win the tie breaker and secure 6th place.

This is the absolute best possible time to make a mid season roster change. At the worst Lustboy cannot drag TSM down out of playoffs, and at best he could help them secure a 1st round bye by securing a top 2 position. By bringing in Lustboy now TSM has in a way gamed the LCS system. They eliminated all of the risk associated with a mid season roster swap while still having the potential for a huge payoff if it goes well.

 All the teams are quite vocal about problems in the LCS system that create this kind of loophole, and TSM owner Reginald is often credited for his shrewd roster decisions. It's unlikely that we'd ever receive confirmation that the Lustboy transfer was all planned, but one must admit it's interesting to speculate that TSM could have been planning this move for over a month.

How a gap in Najin's Shield wall let the KT Arrows slip through.

Most people going into the first quarter final were predicting KT Arrows aggressive play style to run right through an underperforming Najin White Shield. It was quite the surprise then when Najin Shield after a slow start to game 1 out played KT strategically. For the first two games of the series every time the Arrows would try to make a move for picks Shield would heavily out position and win out. The superior movement, timing, and vision of Shield that allowed them to out position the Arrows carried them to an early 2-0 lead and early on in game 3 it looked as though it would turn predictions on their heads and 3-0 the Arrows.

About 27 minutes in Shield appears to have all but won the game, they’ve built a small but comfortable 2k gold lead as well as a significant tower and vision lead. Shield’s Save on Jax has hit the two item point that allows him to just maul towers and no one on Arrows can deal with his split push yet. Even after Shield’s support gets caught out warding the Baron pit Shield is still in a great spot. Not only do they have a lead and a two item Jax, but that Jax has a full wave of minions about to smash into the bottom lane inhibitor turret as the Arrows start the Baron.

At this point Montecristo, English caster for OGN, can actually be heard saying “Shield is okay giving up this Baron for the inhibitor.” He is of course exactly right. There is no one left behind to defend and a Jax with Trinity Force and Blade of the Ruined King will easily take the tower and inhibitor before Arrows get back. At the same time Shield has 3 people poking over the Baron wall and a 4^th running from base. If Jax needs an extra second or two to escape they could easily stop backs to buy time, and if they were feeling extra confident could even try to delay Arrows long enough for Save’s Jax to shred Nexus turrets.

With the inhibitor down and the fact that Baron will not even out the gold for Arrows it would leave Shield in an excellent spot. KT is forced to defend their base against super minions and the ever present threat of a Teleporting Jax back door. If the Arrows try to make one of their trade mark aggressive plays while wearing the Baron buff they run the risk of Jax, or super minions, or both destroying their base and finishing the game, and the inhibitor will not respawn till the Baron is gone. Meanwhile Shield will be free to take vision control and eliminate the 2 remaining towers outside of KT Arrows’ base, knowing that if the Arrows contest they will lose the game. Then once the Baron has respawned Shield can use their map control and split pushing Jax to force a no win decision from the Arrows. If KT contests the Baron with no inhibitor tower to stop him Najin’s Jax will take the game by himself. If KT instead send enough people to deal with Jax’s split push they will be forced to give up the Baron buff allowing Shield to safely siege and systematically close out the game.

Instead when Montecristo gives us his wonderful quote that shows how Najin Shield can secure the victory if they play right, Save’s Jax teleports away from the turret to the Baron pit. Shield then engage with their Jungler at half HP and their support still not in range as they run back from the base after respawning. Despite these disadvantages for Shield it is actually the fact that two of their most important champions, Jax and their ADC Ezreal, end up tanking the Baron for large portions of the fight that turns it against them. They lose the fight in a very close 3-5 but stop the Baron. Not long after a second Baron fight erupts this time going much worse for Shield who were stuck without Jax, because he’d teleported into the last fight where Mundo had not, and Arrows picked up the baron off the back of a fight that went 4-1 in kills.

While this was not the only chance for Najin Shield to win the series, it was definitely the pivotal moment in the best of five between the two teams. KT Arrows were granted a stay of execution by the mistake and they used the momentum of the first win to capitalize on further mistakes in game four, Ggoong’s failed Shockwave into a failed Flash, to force a game five. In the blind pick game five KT were able to get a horrendously strong pick comp that had been banned out the previous games and use it to insurmountably snowball the final victory and the series win over a tilting Shield.