Learning From Failure: Team 8's Repeated Baron Throws

Team 8 struggled all game long with vision control and wave management in their first meeting with Team Impulse (TIP). Despite their early problems Team 8 never had reason to worry, their comp was sledge hammer to the face simplistic and at 28 minutes sledge hammer and face met in a perfect storm of press R to win. By layering Malphite, Orianna, Jarvan, and Graves ultimates together Team 8 won a fight 4 for 2 in an instant. The remaining 3 members of Team 8 were more than enough to clean up the bottom inhibitor of TIP after the fight, and while it did cost them an additional 4 deaths being chased after securing the inhibitor Team 8 had still in all but the most literal interpretations won the game. Because of the simplistic power of Team 8's 5v5 team comp, the fact they'd taken the bottom inhibitor, and TIP's inability to reply with an objective of their own, Team 8 needed was well positioned to wrap up this game.

The Problem

To their credit Team 8 shows they understand the basics of the situation, bot inhibitor dead plus superior 5v5 team comp means TIP will have to give up Baron to Team 8. To top it off Team 8 catches TIP's jungler Rush a little too close to the Baron pit and kill him, taking TIP's chance of a smite steal off the board. At this point Team 8 thinks Baron is theirs for free and they try to rush it down.

In their haste Team 8 has failed to account for a couple of important factors. First, Malphite ultimate, their biggest initiation tool, was just expended to secure the kill on Rush. Second, Impact on Gnar was clearing the minion waves in bottom lane before Rush died so Team 8's super minions are not yet in position to force a Baron or Nexus decision from TIP. Finally, Impact left the bottom lane as soon as Rush died, signalling TIP intends to contest during their small window before the super minions begin hammering away at their nexus turrets. 

Team 8 rush to attempt baron, lose 2 people, a tower, and then lose an additional baron buffed member trying to chase stragglers. While it's not the worst result ever it still means Team 8 can not safely split up to get all 3 waves pushing with baron buff, nor do they have an impenetrable back line while Janna is dead. Instead of having an insurmountable advantage and the ability to wrap up the game in the next few minutes, they are relatively easy to deal with, a fact TIP exploits to keep the game alive. 

Fast forward to 38 minutes into the game, Baron has worn off and respawned with Team 8 getting very little for it. Luckily bot inhibitor has been destroyed again, 1 of TIP's nexus turrets is gone, and Impact on Gnar has just recently used his teleport. We are again looking at an unrecoverable situation for TIP, they can't take a straight up 4v5, they can't leave the super minions alone in their base for long, and Impact has just walked away from bottom lane for TIP's last ditch attempt to save the game.
This time instead of starting Baron it's an even simpler mistake. Calitrlolz is up aggressively clearing an unimportant ward in TIP's top side jungle with limited vision and his teammates too far away to back him up. TIP pick off the Malphite and cascade into the rest of Team 8 before they can react. Slooshi whiffs a shockwave intended to halt the engage, Gnar gets a great stun on 3 remaining T8 members, and TIP races down mid to win the game. 

The Solution

Patience. In both cases this game Team 8 has an inhibitor down and super minions pushing on the bottom side, meaning for both of these baron attempts there is a very limited window where TIP can contest without losing their base and the game. Both times Team 8 starts baron with the super minions still outside of TIP's base and Impact having obviously left the lane to join the baron fight.
Team 8 simply needs a bit of patience in both cases. Stay together, keep up the baron dance, but don't start the baron. This would let the super minions push into TIP's base again and force impact to return to deal with them. Without the tanky front line of Gnar there's nothing to lock Team 8 in the baron pit when they do it and no way for TIP to contest without disastrous results.
Patience can be a hard thing for new teams to learn, especially as it's often reinforced that they should capitalize on a mistake the instant they recognize it. Once the lesson is learned though, patience is an invaluable tool that will sometimes mean the difference between a horrible throw and a well controlled finish to a game. 

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.

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.

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.

Lee Sin, the real King of the Jungle.

Image Credit: Riot Games

It's no secret that Lee Sin is a strong jungle pick. If I asked you to name a popular competitive jungle he'd easily be one of the first to come to mind, and Lee Sin is widely regarded as one of the 3 "S tier" or best jungle picks available. Lee Sin's kit gives a lot of potential to out play and that along with the relative strength of his numbers makes him so popular. What's not so obvious though is just how utterly oppressive Lee Sin is in the jungle.

Throughout season 4 Lee Sin has enjoyed a top spot in the jungle. In spring Lee Sin and Kha'Zix teamed up to force all but themselves Elise, and Evelynn out of viability in competitive play with their insane early damage capabilities. Other junglers like VI or Jarvan simply couldn't deal with with Kha or Lee who would walk into their jungles and fight them from level 3 on. Since then Kha'Zix ate a hefty nerf that dropped him from the equation and left Lee Sin alone at the top.

Since Kha'Zix fell out of favor it has opened up junglers other than the S tier of Lee Sin, Elise, and Evelynn in competitive play but almost all of them require Lee Sin to be banned before they can safely be played. In OGN Lee has only slipped through against non S tier junglers a grand total of 6 times. While Lee does hold a 2-4 record in OGN it's all examples of skill disparity between teams, like in Samsung Blue's victory over IM#2, or heavy misplay like CJ Frost's loss to SKT T1 S. When we expand to include the LCS regions in our numbers Lee Sin's win rate grows to 12-10 over non S tier junglers this summer. A full seven of the 10 losses against non S tier junglers, including the four from OGN, are blatant examples of skill disparity or misplays.

The three losses for Lee Sin not easily explainable by blatant misplays, or by the fact it was a team that failed to advance facing a team favored by many to win OGN Summer, come at the hands of Nunu. Nunu's victory over Lee Sin shouldn't come as too much of a surprise though. The Yeti rider has always had a very binary nature in the jungle, either getting an early lead and playing flawlessly to win, or making a mistake to fall behind and lose in fantastic manner. It's why I continue to hate Nunu in the jungle when I see it picked, because few teams have the ability to play it as flawlessly as required to ensure victory.

Some might argue that Lee Sin alone is not that oppressive in the jungle considering that Evelynn and Elise hold a much more impressive 23-14 record against non S tier junglers. While those numbers are certainly more impressive it is important to notice the fact that almost universally in those games Lee Sin received a ban, usually from the team playing the non S tier jungler. What's more while they will allow Elise or Eve to make it through champ select, the teams with the best pick/ban phases almost never allow Lee to slip through when intending to play anything other than Elise, Eve, or Nunu. Samsung White, SKT K, Alliance, Fnatic, and C9 have never allowed Lee Sin through champion select when they picked any jungler other than Nunu, Eve, or Elise. Samsung Blue has only allowed it once against IM#2 who failed to escape groups, and CLG has only allowed it once but picked their non S tier jungler after seeing the enemy lock in Elise.

Lee Sin commands intense respect in champion select from top teams making him the target of dozens of picks and bans in the summer season alone. The best teams avoid the mistake of picking any jungler other than Eve, Elise, or Nunu without first guaranteeing Lee Sin is off the table. Those teams that have picked non S tier junglers into Lee rely mostly on out playing their opponents, which has worked for some like SHC and SGB, and exploded in the faces of others such as CRS and TSM. It is clear from looking at the way the best teams play champion select that this summer Lee Sin is the undisputed king of the jungle.

More mid laners should adopt Bjergsen's Scrying Orb start.

Evelynn has been a high value pick in the LCS for much of this season. She’s valued for her early power and the stealth that makes it so hard to keep track of her movements in the jungle. That stealth early game can often create strong advantages for teams forcing enemies to play safe in lane or potentially die to an invisible Evelynn popping up behind them.

It’s very difficult to counter Eve’s early pressure. Pink wards are too expensive to reasonably expect someone to purchase one at the start of the game, not to mention difficult to defend against Evelynn. You can invade and get a ward down on her camps but this is inherently dangerous. If the enemy team reacts to your invade or just walks the right way to stumble on you trying to get deep vision you can end up giving up first blood, the very thing that ward is trying to avoid. The result is most players simply play more passive against Evelynn junglers, if you don’t push up Eve has to come at you head on and it’s easier to get away.

Enter Bjergsen this super week. Twice he faced off against an Evelynn and twice he made a strong case for the blue trinket (Scrying Orb) start. The Scrying Orb reveals an area up to 2500 units away for 2 seconds on a 2 minute cool down. While the Scrying Orb does not reveal stealth it can still be invaluable in the search for information on Evelynn’s movements by revealing an enemy jungle camp.

Regardless of the state the camp is in when revealed by Scrying Orb, up, not up, actively being cleared, it is valuable info for a team. Professional junglers often study each other’s movements and can do a reasonable job of predicting each other’s movements. This means junglers can take the knowledge that Evelynn has or has not cleared the camp and use it to better estimate and predict the enemy jungler’s movements.

Taking the first item Scrying Orb comes at no cost to mid laners too. Most mid laners, even in Korea, use their ward trinkets inefficiently against Evelynns primarily because of how unsafe they have to be to drop the trinket ward somewhere it can reveal Eve. Instead we see mid laners with ward trinkets simply warding as if against a normal jungler and getting nothing from the use of it. This is likely a hold over from previous patches where the double jungle and multiple people roaming mid early was common. On the 4.10 patch such swaps have become rather uncommon as teams are favoring the standard 2v2 lanes where Evelynn thrives and the warding trinkets become superfluous.

By starting Scrying Orb instead mid laners can scout Eve’s wraith camp from just over half way up the lane, much safer than placing a trinket ward. Once a mid laner with a Scrying Orb hits the point where they want to roam they simply exchange the trinket for a sweeping lens like they normally would if they started warding trinket and go about the mid game normally.

A Scrying Orb start comes at no cost to a mid laner but grants important information against an Evelynn jungler. Looking across the premier leagues that feed directly into the World Championships, Bjergsen is the only mid laner to have made this adaptation so far. However the value for professional teams is plain to see. More mid laners should adopt the Scrying Orb start when facing Evelynn in the jungle.

The diversity of NA LCS players is surprisingly high

The LCS has existed for nearly 2 years at this point, with 8 teams battling each other each split for the top spots. With only 8 teams per split, 5 players per team, and only being in our 4th split you'd think that there's not a lot of diversity in such a small sample size, even before remembering at maximum 3 teams can be knocked out of the league at a time. However you, like myself, will probably be presently surprised when you really sit down and realize how diverse the NA LCS has been.

In two years of play the NA LCS has managed to hit many of the major racial groups with at least 1 player of each Asian, White, Black, Middle Eastern, Indian, and Hispanic descent. We've had openly gay players. We've had starters still in high school, married men, and even a parent starting for an NA LCS team. Those players have been born from over a dozen different countries including USA, Canada, Venezuela, Bulgaria, Korea, Germany, Scotland, Denmark, Belgium, The Philippines, Armenia, Isreal, and China. That's a lot of different backgrounds for a league that only allows 40 players in at a time.

Despite how good that looks we can still do better. LCS is most obviously still missing a woman player. Women are painfully lacking in esports in general as well as League, despite prominent examples like Hafu and Scarlett continuing to prove they can compete. While I won't advocate picking up someone solely for diversity's sake I do hope we as a community can do more to encourage women and any other groups still not represented in the LCS to keep trying.

In the mean time we can all be just a little bit proud of how diverse the NA LCS has been in such a short time, and hopeful that it keeps expanding in the future.

Fantasy LCS Week 7, Who Do I Start?

Low Risk:

Altec: The EG adc continues to perform week after week averaging mid 30s in points for 2 games. You can safely expect that he'll turn in a middle of the road performance and wont harm your fantasy chances. If EG happens to do exceptional as they will quite randomly decide to do from time to time he could even put up incredible numbers, though EG has yet to have a consistent enough week to make that happen. 

Team Solo Mid: Not usually members of this list but a lot of people have shied away from them in fantasy since the start of the split and to be fair they have an equal win/loss to Milennium who often grace this list. Most importantly though TSM has one of the best possible weeks this week. They have an impeccable record against the bottom 3 teams, 2-0 against CoL, EG, and Curse and they face all 3 this super week. If your fantasy leagues are anything like mine there's probably at least Gleeb floating free. Snap up TSM members and start them this week, there's a strong chance they're going to go 3-1 at least. 

Creaton: With a few exceptions the MIL ad carry has put up some impressive numbers. He is one of the few to routinely out score Altec week after week thanks in large part to his team's tendency to have long chaotic games regardless of win or loss. This week MIL faces 3 of the easier teams in EU and the always chaotic Fnatic, anything could happen. What will happen though is Creaton scoring you plenty of points. 

Kerp: Highest scoring Fantasy player this split and MIL could go anything from 2-2 to 4-0 this week. If Kerp is a free agent or riding your bench you're just bad at fantasy LCS. 

Medium Risk:

Millenium: While Kerp and Creaton are usually huge points batteries the rest of MIL is generally quite spotty. As mentioned before however, MIL has a relatively safe super week and good potential to pull between 2 and 4 wins. The fact they may only go 2-2 this week makes the rest of the team a bit of a risk but the payoff if they manage 4 wins will be monumental. 

Edward: After their unfortunate Visa problems for London Gambit came back with a renewed fire and Edward managed to stand out among them. His play was incredible and he put up astounding numbers for a support despite Gambit ending the week 1-1. If that same fire is alive in Edward this week he could leave you swimming in fantasy points as Gambit has a decent schedule ahead of them. If they play well Gambit has a reasonable expectation of ending the week with 2-3 wins. 

High Risk:

RobertxLee: CoL continues to garner a reputation as the blue turtle shell of NA LCS taking wins off the top teams. In those wins it's almost always Robert who gets rolling in a huge way to win them the game. This week CoL has 2 strong chances for Blue Turtle Shell action, as well as an always close competition against EG. A bet on Robert could payoff if their tendency to knock games off the best of the league holds true. 

Overpow: Roccat have not looked good at all recently, I broke down why here. Despite that they have shown flashes of their old selves in their most recent games and their coach is finally in house helping them out. Roccat has the easiest super week they're going to get this week, If Veggie being in house and those flashes of Roccat are ever going to amount to anything this is the time it should happen. It's the epitome of High risk to put Overpow on your starting lineup at all but if he's ever going to payoff this split this week is the best chance of that happening. 

From tied for first to struggling at the bottom of the pack, the rise and fall of ROCCAT.

Picture credit: Lolesports.com

When most of us first met Roccat (then KMT) they were complete underdogs heading into the spring promotion tournament against NiP. Instead of playing like the underdogs Roccat simply played NiP's game, but better. Roccat systematically dismantled NiP in 3 long slow games giving us the 3-0 stomp everyone expected, but for the team no one thought would qualify. Thus was Roccat ushered into the EU LCS.

ROCCAT Rising

Qualifying for LCS was only the beginning of Roccat's bag of tricks though. In their very first game Roccat broke out Pantheon mid and gave us the Unstoppable Skyfall wombo combo that would help them to a quick and decisive 31 minute victory. More than just setting Roccat off to a good start, this game also proved that they were more than the slow methodical play we had seen from them in the promotion series. Roccat would follow it up with more stellar performances and even some interesting picks like Gragas jungle and a Mordakaiser mid.

It did not take long for Roccat's strengths to shine through. They were masters of the reactive play style in both champion select and the game itself. Whether it was seeing NiP's late game team comp coming and beating them at their own game, or using SHC's aggressive push mid to create the Unstoppable Skyfall Roccat's reactive play was in a word incredible. They also backed up that strong reactive play with exquisite team fighting.

Spring split Roccat looked very much like Cloud 9 when it came to team fighting. There was no hesitation, no questioning the call, when Roccat went for a fight they all simply went in. The Unstoppable Skyfall is a great example of this. Roccat knows SHC is about to try to 5 man push mid for the outer turret. They've already seen 4 SHC members in mid lane and know Mimer is roaming down. To react Roccat pulls Xaxus down from top and Overpow up from bot. As soon as SHC make their push Overpow pulls the trigger and all of Roccat pile in, the result is a thing of beauty.

I love this gif

That first game for Roccat was such a great example of what Roccat was in the spring split. Not only do they react to SHC's play and pile in on the call to engage without hesitation, but they also show the trademark Roccat style. When this game came out Pantheon mid and Malphite top were not even close to popular. Instead of playing the established popular champions Roccat picked their own style that worked for them and executed it flawlessly, and they continued to do it for much of their strong spring performance.

Roccat were not without their weaknesses though. jungler Jankos often made questionable decisions during the early game that could put him and his team behind, some of their laning phases were below par for the EU LCS, and their vision game was never the strongest. All of that meant teams with powerful early games, like the spring incarnation of Copenhagen Wolves, could get a strong enough lead early to leave Roccat with no good options. This happened more often as teams like SK and Alliance hit their stride but Roccat was still able to end the regular season in 4th and defeat Gambit for 3rd place playoff finish. So how did Roccat go from a top 4 team to barely managing to defeat a squad of last minute substitutes?

Collapse of Confidence

Roccat has lost confidence in themselves and their play. We can see it in their sloppy pick ban phase against SK today where they were caught having to decide which of two very strong Jesiz champions, Kayle and Kassadin, was okay to let through. We can see it in their hesitation to commit to fights and objectives like the game against MIL at Wembley with the dragon dance that just wouldn't end. The most telling sign though is in their picks this split, half way through the season and they've not broken free from the popular tier of picks even once.

Last split Roccat was a team that would bring Gragas jungle or Mordakaiser mid to the table and crush with it because they were playing their own style of game. Now they play everyone else's style, they play the same standard champions as everyone else, and they are afraid of taking the risks that scored them so many victories in spring.

A team once praised for their reactive play style, Roccat has become risk averse. Roccat hesitate when they opportunity to take chances occur, like in champion select against SK where they could have left Kassadin and Kayle both open to put SK on the back food, and they hesitate when they should be forcing fights and objectives like the MIL dragon that dance that never ends.

Each time the hesitation appears, even for an instant, Roccat suffers immensely for it. Whether against the best or the worst of the EU LCS, hesitation has cost Roccat fights, leads, and in many cases entire games. To make matters even worse, none of Roccat's issues from last split have been solved. Their laning phase is still nothing special, they're still making questionable decisions early game, and their vision play has actually gotten worse.

Road to Recovery

Unfortunately while noticing and pointing out these problems is easy, there's no magic cure to solve a team no longer trusting calls. If someone could figure out the secret of convincing teams to blindly trust calls they could make a pretty penny selling it to League teams. Until then however Roccat will have to put in the hard work to solve their problems. There is a small hope that having their coach Veggie back, he was unable to be in the team house until recently, will help fix Roccat's problems.

Even if they struggle to solve the confidence problem Roccat can still make themselves more competitive by solving some of the issues that have plagued them from their entry into the LCS. Better early game and stronger vision control would go a long way towards bringing the team much needed wins. With wins might come some of that confidence they once had and maybe a bit less of the hesitation we see now.

Fantasy LCS Week 6, Who Do I Start?

Low Risk:

Altec: Despite EG only managing 3 wins so far this season Altec has been incredibly valuable for fantasy teams. He's dipped below 30 pts only once and he was still very close with 28. Altec continues to be an incredibly safe bet. 

Medium Risk:

RobertxLee: With all their troubles this season it's little wonder that CoL players rarely make this list, but if anyone deserves to it's Robert. He's been instrumental in most of CoL's leads and all of their wins. CoL doesn't have many wins, but they have started to gain a reputation as Giant Slayers and even hold the 1-0 lead over both teams they face this week. If there's ever a time to bet on CoL it might be now, and that bet should probably land on Robert's shoulders. 

Quas: Curse's top laner has been putting in stellar performances, and good fantasy numbers lately. Curse faces the only two teams lower than themselves in the standings this split, and while they've dropped a game to CoL previously Curse seems determined to prove that a fluke. If Curse comes out strong in the same way they have been it will likely have a lot to do with Quas and Voyboy.

Voyboy: Much like teammate Quas, Voyboy has had strong showings and seems desperate to silence the naysayers. If Curse sees victory over EG and CoL expect their solo laners to shower you with Fantasy points. 

Woolite: The CW ad carry has certainly put up his share of impressive point totals cresting over 50 points more than once despite a 2-10 record for the team. None the less he's also had his off weeks posting barely over 10 points which makes him a bit more of a risk than Altec. This week CW faces Fnatic and Gambit, two teams that have struggled nearly as much as CW itself this season. There's a good chance this will be one of Woolite's strong weeks. 

High Risk:

Niq: It's no secret Gambit has struggled since Alex Ich left and Niq was asked to fill his shoes. However, while the team has struggled it's certainly not been the fault of Niq who's reasonable performances tend to generate around 30 points a week. Niq has posted strong numbers on occasion though cresting the 40 pts mark and this could be a week he repeats that. Gambit faces SHC and CW both teams are struggling and both games could swing either way. If Gambit comes out on top expect Niq to generate quality points, but if Gambit falls Niq's lower numbers might make the difference in your match up. 

Fantasy LCS Week 5, Who Do I Start?

Coming up on the halfway point in the LCS split and it's given us some good patterns to look at for trying to predict who will or wont come out huge this week. Unfortunately the nature of the beast means that sometimes unpredictable things happen, like SHC falling apart in their easy week. Even events that couldn't be predicted before they happened though can still be useful. While it is too early to call the SHC train derailed it's made it clear that they should still be assessed as potential risks for this list.

In the interest of readability I've added player names to the front and underlined them in case you don't care to read the explanation as to why they're rated how they are.

Low Risk:

Altec: Since his debut in the LCS the EG adc has shown an impressive ability to generate fantasy points in any conditions. In week 1 losing to top rated Dignitas he scored over 20 points, a score usually seen from victory. Last week Altec scored 28 points despite going 0-2 which was better than about half the ADCs available in fantasy LCS including usually strong performers like Sneaky, Tabzz, and Imaqtpie. This week EG faces CompLexity and TSM, they have a strong chance of going 1-1 and even a reasonable chance at a 2-0 with the help of their new jungler Helios. EG is a good bet and that makes Altec an excellent bet.

Medium Risk:

Kerp: It's no secret Kerp has a tendency to generate ridiculous points when winning. This week Millenium faces ROCCAT and Fnatic which means there's a reasonable chance for at least 1 MIL win. Kerp is inconsistent which makes him a bit dangerous, but MIL typically wins off the back of Kerp and means that betting on him in a potentially winning week can payoff big.

Creaton: Much like his teammate Kerp, Creaton has been known to put up incredible numbers when he does well. With Milennium looking at a 1-1 week Creaton is not a bad bet to score a few extra points from your flex or ADC positions.

Helios: EG is looking at a good week this week and any wins they pick up will depend a lot on the pressure applied by their new jungler Helios. He already showed his skill last week generating early leads for EG proving he's not a bad bet when EG wins.

High Risk:

Overpow: ROCCAT showed signs of life taking down SHC last week. This week they face the two weakest teams in the EU LCS Gambit and MIL. If ROC is going to have an upswing this is the most likely week for it and it will largely swing on Overpow's ability to carry. He's a dangerous chance to take but if ROC is back that shot will payoff huge.

Diamond: Gambit has struggled to return to their former glory after the loss of mid laner Alex Ich, but Diamond is clearly still a large part of what carries Gambit victories. If ROCCAT's unable to repeat last week's performance it will be Diamond and Gambit who reap the rewards.