NA LCS - Is It Our Turn?

By Johnny Ngo on August 21, 2014

League of Legends and it’s competitive scene has grown exponentially in the past few years. With more teams all over the world aiming for a chance to win the Summoner’s Cup, desperate times call for desperate measures as the top teams in North America prepare for the the playoffs.

The NA and EU LCS playoffs are structured as such: out of the eight teams in their respective competitive leagues, the top six move onto the regional tournament, commonly known as playoffs. Teams are placed in a tournament bracket, and the top three teams will represent their respective region in the World Championship. Three teams will advance to the World Championship from OnGameNet (OGN, Korea), three teams will advance from LPL (LoL Pro League, China), three teams from GPL (Garena Premier League, SE Asia), and two teams from everywhere else (International wildcards) for a grand total of sixteen teams.

During each split the regular season, teams play against each other in 28 matches over the course of 11 weeks (four matches against each other team). Each team’s performance over the summer split determines who they play and where they are placed in the playoff bracket. Each week, teams play two matches (one on Saturday, one on Sunday) in front of a live audience in Los Angeles, California. Live streams for the matches are also available to watch online.

Week 11 of LCS was one of three “super weeks,” where teams played four matches distributed over Friday, Saturday and Sunday. These final four matches were extremely important for most teams in the LCS; this particular split has been so close, any team could have theoretically made it to the playoffs. Almost every team tried their hardest to win all of their matches in order to have better placement in the bracket, thus increasing the theoretical likelihood of that team moving on to the world stage.

Almost every team tried their best except for one: CLG, or Counter Logic Gaming.

Based on the standings before week 11, CLG had a secured spot in the playoffs; if they lost every match in week 11 (which they did), it wouldn’t have mattered. They also would have been missing one of their main players, Seraph, due to visa restrictions. Because he had to return to Korea in addition to secure their playoff spot, the main roster of CLG decided to follow their top laner and go to Korea to practice with some of the best teams in the world. CLG gathered a group of substitute players to play their final matches of the regular season while the main roster practiced with the world’s top teams.

Just a few weeks before CLG decided to visit the homeland of Kimchi, another team made a decision that brought the community talking.

TSM, or Team SoloMid, decided to remove Nicholas “Gleebglarbu” Haddad, also known as TSM Gleeb, and replaced him with Ham “Lustboy” Jang-sik, former support of CJ Entus Blaze.

In short, the decision was made by management due to personality conflicts as well as an underwhelming performance by Gleeb. The team felt that Lustboy, even in less favorable conditions, demonstrated a stronger sense of game knowledge and mechanical ability. This was right before week 10 of the LCS. There were people that were quite shocked that any team would make a roster change so close to the end of the season with playoffs just around the corner.

TSM Lustboy is one of three players, alongside EG Helios and CLG Seraph who have been recruited by NA LCS teams over the summer split. This summer split has arguably been the closest split that North America has seen yet. After the spring split earlier this year, there were many major roster changes, such as the addition of Shin “Seraph” Wooyeong to CLG as well as Alex “Xpecial” Chu to team Curse.

image via https://esportsunlimited.com

With playoffs around the corner, here is a bit about where each team stands in the playoffs. Shoutout to my friend Gary for helping me with the summaries of each team:

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Cloud 9: With the conclusion of the regular season, C9 has secured three consecutive splits with a first place spot in the NA LCS. While they showed a less dominating performance at the beginning of this split due to their team captain and shotcaller, Hai “Hai” Lam, being hospitalized and being unable to practice with the team for a few weeks. However, they’ve shown that superior rotations, objective control and teamwork are major keys to success in winning any game. After playing against international teams at multiple events, they would make a great contender for worlds in representing NA.

Players to look out for include C9′s jungler, Meteos, their top laner, Balls, as well as their marksman, Sneaky.

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LMQ: LMQ is one of the newer teams in the NA LCS that made their way from China to the challenger scene before coming in to dominate the summer split. Ackerman, formerly known as GoDlike, played at the Season 3 World Finals with Royal Club, who has left his mark in LCS with his popular Gragas play. LMQ  has a particularly aggressive playstyle that most teams acknowledge and have fallen victim to many times over the split, and are a great contender for the world stage.

Players to keep an eye out for are their top laner ackerman, formerly GoDlike, XiaoWeiXiao, a top tier midlaner with a high GPM (gold per minute), and Vasilii, the overaggressive marksman who is known for his Tristiana, both here in NA as well as China.

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Team SoloMid: The North American favorite since season 1, TSM not only has a very vocal fanbase but also has strong players from all over the world. Bjergsen has received a lot of hype ever since his arrival in the North American scene and has lived up to the hype, especially with his performance last season. Many considered him to be the strongest midlaner in NA’s last split. Amazing, their jungler, as well as Lustboy, their support, have also shown to be good additions to the team. Although they’ve had an overall rocky road to overcome, the roster changes as well as the addition of a coach has so far shown to be taking steps in the right direction to qualify for the world stage. TSM is one of the few teams who have made it to worlds every year thus far, and they do not plan on breaking that streak now.

Players to watch out for are Bjergsen, Amazing and Lustboy. The hype for Bjergsen came from his ability to duel other players 1 v 1 and come out on top alongside his superior mechanical abilities to continuously outplay his opponents. Amazing’s performance hasn’t quite been as amazing as the team would like, but is a danger to teams who give him his preferred picks. Lustboy hasn’t had as much of an opportunity to prove he is a top tier support, but is not a player to overlook in the bottom lane.

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Curse: Team Curse is known as the “cursed” team to finish each split in fourth place, which they have done time and time again, including this season. However, they may not be the fourth place team that people remember them as any longer. Their recent performance in week 11′s superweek has shown that they can take down the top teams and earn themselves a spot to represent NA at the world championships. Much of their success comes from their midlaner Voyboy, who appears to have found his spark and is looking more like the dominant player that he once was.

Players to look out for include Voyboy, IWillDominate and Xpecial. Voyboy had a bit of a slump this split, not making great use of his champion picks in lane and doing as well as he would like. He is known for his superb ability to play assassin champions who were extremely difficult to play competitively due to the meta game of season 4. However, he’s adapted and made use of personal, non-meta picks that he can play well such as Talon and Tristana, carrying his team to victory and hopefully to worlds. IWD has also suffered from lackluster performances that have not put them where they want to be. However, with his recent improvement in his personal performance as well as Xpecial’s all-star mechanical ability, Team Curse is not far from a team to overlook.

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Counter Logic Gaming: CLG is another North American favorite, being the oldest League of Legends team that is still active in the competitive scene. As noted earlier, CLG’s recent trip to Korea in hopes to train with the best teams in the world will hopefully be a trip well worth it’s trouble; four out of the five players were fined due to account sharing issues in Korea. Their coach, MonteCristo is one of the English shoutcasters for OGN and will hopefully be bringing some of his knowledge of the Korean meta game to CLG.

Players to look out for include LiNk, Doublelift and Aphromoo. LiNk had the opportunity to lane against the world’s best top laners, including xPeke, Faker and xiyang when he went to All-Stars with C9. Aphromoo is regarded as the best support player in NA, and Doublelift being known for his game knowledge, playful trash talk and superior mechanical abilities.

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Team Dignitas: Another LCS veteran, Dignitas has always been the underdog of the North American scene. However, after the end of the last split, DIG picked up two all star players from Team Coast, Danny “Shiphtur” Le and Darshan “ZionSpartan” Upadhyaya. With a strong start to the split followed by a losing streak towards the end, DIG has had their fair share of ups and downs over the course of the summer split. They’ve shown they can take down the top teams in complete domination as well as shown that they have their share of weaknesses.

Players to keep an eye out for include their top laner ZionSpartan, who has proven to be one of the best top laners in all of NA LCS with his dueling skills and mecahnics, Shiphtur, who is an extremely consistent, strong mid laner who can make the plays and punish enemy mistakes when he gets any form of an advantage, and Crumbz, who supports his team and acts as the shotcaller, carrying his team to victory from the jungle.

In Season 1, Fnatic took first place in the World Championship. Season 2 was dominated by the Taipei Assassins, and the Summoner Cup went to SK Telecom T1 K in season 3.

Season 1 went to Europe. Season 2 went to Southeast Asia and season 3 went to Korea.

It’s our turn and our time to win. Can NA take season 4?  Can one of our NA LCS teams make it happen? Do we have what it takes?

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