Power Rankings 2/9/2016

For an in-depth look at every team, and context on our panel and process for ranking, take a look at our novella about every team in professional League -- the Preseason Power Rankings. Also check out last week's rankings if you missed them.

Feel free to skip ahead to your region of choice.

NA LCS | EU LCS | LMS | LPL | LCK | International

Things are starting to heat up!

With the Spring Split now in full swing, and teams in every region distancing from the pack, we have clear teams who are the leaders and the followers. The use of rotating rosters has helped elevate certain teams this Season, and its those teams that we will take a closer look at in this edition of Power Rankings.

NA LCS

Written by Carlos "h0tsawce" Bravo

• S Tier: IMT (8-0)
• A Tier: NRG (5-3) | (+) C9 (5-3)
• B Tier: TSM (5-3) | CLG (5-3) | TL (4-4)
• C Tier: TIP (3-5)
• D Tier: (-) DIG (3-5)
• F Tier: (-) EF (1-7) | (-) REN (1-7)

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S Tier: Immortals (8-0)

Immortals continue to live up to their name. Reignover’s map pressure and ability to initiate fights have been impressive and his overall form has been maybe even better than with Fnatic in 2015. The match on Saturday vs. CLG was entertaining, but perhaps shows a chink in their armor -- strong macro team play. On the flip side of the coin, the match Sunday shows their greatest strengths – organized chaos and mechanical superiority. As we begin the second half of the schedule, and some teams are beginning to take shape, will we finally see the Immortals fall down to Earth?

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A Tier: NRG eSports (5-3) | (+) Cloud9 (5-3)

This week’s high-risers are Cloud9, with two thorough and complete victories. Jensen, for some reason, has not been getting recognition as an elite mid laner in NA. But after two impressive performances, including the annihilation of GBM, he received a much deserved MVP for Week 4. Hai is holding steady at support, shining in other ways we know all too well about by now. Things are beginning to look up for Cloud9 -- the match on Sunday vs. NRG was telling as to how good theycan become. Sunday’s match put some of C9’s recent improvements on display -- strong macro play, complete domination from mid lane, and decisive moves around the map during and after a skirmish.

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Speaking of that match on Sunday, we have NRG holding steady in A tier, although slipping a spot. Saturday’s match versus Team Impulse put GBM in the spotlight with his hard carry performance on LeBlanc. However, Jensen thoroughly put to bed most talk of GBM being best mid laner in NA when Cloud9 throttled NRG. Nevertheless, NRG are still a team to watch and very much on the rise, and GBM and Altec in particular bring a level of class other teams can’t boast. But with the utilization of substitutes becoming more commonplace, it should be asked -- how patient can NRG be with Moon? NRG are clearly lacking in their early game pressure and playmaking, and that largely falls on Moon's shoulders. In addition, GBM hasn’t played well at all during the laning phase, but perhaps that’s more due to poor jungle support than actual lane matchups -- and he always shows up huge in mid game.

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B Tier: Counter Logic Gaming (5-3) | TSM (5-3) | (+) Liquid (4-4)

CLG had a pretty solid week, which warrants them moving up a couple of spots in the standings. I suspect this is what we are going to get from CLG -- solid performances. A well-fought loss vs. Immortals on Saturday highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of the team: somewhat limited in skill and capability, but good decision making and a tenacious attitude. On Sunday, CLG looked great in their comprehensive victory over Team Impulse. In particular, Stixxay and Huhi performed well this weekend and continue to improve with a big rematch vs. TSM on Sunday.

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On the subject of TSM, what are they even doing? Quite frankly, they looked awful in their two victories this weekend. However, there is an old saying in soccer -- form is temporary, but class is permanent. TSM have all the talent and class in the world to turn this around, but the team will have to look from within. Rumblings in the locker room have emerged of possible dissent and not listening to calls. Ultimately, it’s up to the players  to decide whether they want to be a world class team.

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Liquid continues to be a team on the rise, with an impressive win on Saturday vs. Team Dignitas, but a thorough defeat by Immortals on Sunday. However, if I were a Liquid fan, I would take more positives from the defeat on Sunday. Mistakes were made, and yeah Liquid was overaggressive in some spots, but if not for some misplays, the fights could have easily gone in Liquid’s direction. It’s especially encouraging to see a team continue to play aggressively even if things aren’t going their way. This is a team to watch.

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C Tier: Team Impulse (3-5)

Team Impulse had an 0-2 week, yet don’t fall in the standings. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, right? Well, Team Impulse were fairly competitive vs. NRG, and although they were handily beaten at the hands of CLG, there were no clown fiesta tier performances (looking at you Team Dignitas vs. Echo Fox). Impulse appears to be improving, and while nobody expects anything significant to come, Impulse look like a team that should be safe from Relegation this split.

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D Tier: (-) Team Dignitas (3-5)

What goes up must come down. Team Dignitas seemed to be a middle-of-the-pack team at the beginning of the split but things have looked more shaky recently. After a Razzie-worthy participant for worst pro game of the year this Sunday vs. Echo Fox, we are beginning to wonder how things will shake out for Team Dignitas. BillyBoss is clearly struggling, and Kirei has not shown much beyond Elise. Kiwikid, as a PSA let me just say -- please don’t ever play Bard again. Thanks!

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F Tier: (-) Renegades (1-7) | (-) Echo Fox (1-7)

In many ways, Renegades are in an even worse position than our last team Echo Fox. At least Echo Fox can say they are playing with subs. Renegades look aimless, and short of inspiration. We even saw Freeze’s legendary Draven to no avail, although to be fair it was a competitive match vs. TSM. Flaresz looked like a major upgrade over RF Legendary with the ability to get 1 vs. 1 kills and play carry champs effectively. We could go on, but Flaresz couldn’t carry the team even though he was far ahead on Ryze. Additionally, Crumbz just looks like a player that is well past his prime. Maybe it’s time for some more shake-ups with the roster.

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Honestly, I don’t even know what to say about Echo Fox. Obviously they aren’t playing with their original roster due to Visa issues, but they seem to have a knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I guess all I can do is provide the same words of encouragement that I gave Team Impulse and their fans at the start of the split – at least there’s no Auto-Relegation!

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EU LCS

Written by Frank "Mirhi" Fields

• S Tier: H2K (7-1) | (+) G2 (7-1)
• A Tier: (-) VIT (5-3) | (+) UOL (6-2)
• B Tier: OG (4-4) | FNC (5-3)
• C Tier: SPY (2-6) | ROC (1-7) | EL (3-5)
• D Tier: GIA (0-8)

And this week….. the same!

It's bittersweet when a region is so stable that you can predict nearly every matchup without a seconds hesitation, but that's where we are today. There's a very clear pecking order in Europe where the S Tier teams are subjugating their underlings and No. 3-6 scrap with each other.

The flip side is that the bottom four can't do anything but pummel each other further down the rankings.

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S Tier: H2K (7-1) | (+) G2 Esports (7-1)

H2K had a crisis of faith this week. The team enjoyed the weekly privilege of Ryu taking enemy mid laners into solitary confinement and giving them the business. However Selfie has proven that he can't take the heat of the mid lane island. H2K often has to assist Selfie in laning phase (As VandeR pointed out in his post game interview), and H2K finds themselves putting him on comfort picks to improve their early game. Even so, Jankos in particular had a troublesome early game last week, miscalculating the limits of Elise in skirmishes. I wouldn't expect that to continue, but it's still a mark against H2Ks validation as the second coming of EUphoria. To remain on top, H2K will have to evolve to support Selfie's style.

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On the other hand, G2 is starting to look like they may need their own tier soon. While there's still a lot of games left to be played, Perkz is a shoe-in for Outstanding Rookie and a lead MVP candidate. He has consistently won lane, outplayed in skirmishes, and manipulated teamfights on assassins, control mages, and marksmen. His versatility and excellence is only one reason the team is so great though. Emperor is another standout who, aside from some overreaching aggressive plays, has been almost perfect, making mechanical outplays regularly. This team has skills, but where they still need improvement is the macro game. What will happen when they can no longer bully their opponents into submission after a dominating early game?

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A Tier: (-) Team Vitality (5-3) | (+) Unicorns of Love (6-2)

Team Vitality can't seem to get it's act together. It shouldn't be surprising that they decimated Elements in their first game -- good teams should throttle their subordinates. But their demoralizing 48 minute defeat at the hands of a reinvigorated UOL leaves us wondering what this roster is capable of. Shook is still unable to work around his limited champion pool, Nukeduck is still not the superstar he was in 2013, and Hjarnan and KaSing are still not the best bot lane in Europe -- not even close. Cabochard has been one of the best in Europe at his position, but even his improved performance has been usurped by the Split that H2K top laner Odoamne is having. For now Vitality is just a good team, not a great team, and a lot of their problems are just coming down to individual mistakes.

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Coming off a 2-0 week, Unicorns of Love is trending in the other direction. When we found out that legendary jungler Diamondprox would be yanked off the LCS stage by his Visa issues, we thought UOL would have difficulty maintaining their status as a contender for the EU LCS Championship. But Unicorns had discovered a new diamond in the rough in substitute jungler Rudy who was brilliant. Rudy provided early game control, great playmaking in the mid game, and fit into the team's style almost seamlessly down the stretch. With Fox and Steeelback's continued improvement, and Vizicascsi having his best Split yet in the LCS, Unicorns of Love could challenge G2 and H2K with only minor improvements to the team.

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B Tier: Origen (4-4) | Fnatic (5-3)

Considering the wealth of talent on these rosters, it's incredibly disappointing to see both mired in  mediocrity. Origen hasn't looked comfortable the whole split -- PowerOfEvil hasn't fit in, Amazing has actually lost his grip on the game, and SoaZ has reverted to tilt fest. Zven and Mithy are positives on this roster, but they can't do it alone.

Fnatic did win both their games, but they were incredibly fortunate to do so -- if not for the late-game oppression that is Lulu + Caitlyn, they would have certainly lost against Roccat. Spirit has simultaneously made intelligent and boneheaded plays -- for them to win, he needs to be the great jungler he was in 2014 for Samsung Blue. As for Febiven and Rekkles, the incredible best-in-position skillset they showed in 2015 just isn't replicating in 2016. I'm not sure that Fnatic looks any better now than in Week 1 -- and that's disconcerting considering their pedigree.

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C Tier: Elements (3-5) | Splyce (2-6) | Roccat (1-7)

Six games played, zero wins. Thus the cycle goes for the bottom four teams in the EU LCS. Roccat let one get away from them them against Fnatic -- they were up over 5k gold after 30 minutes into the game and, like the nice guy at the bar, couldn't close. There are gems on these teams: Steve, MrRalleZ, Betsy, Airwaks, and Sencux have all been good at times. But each of these teams are rarely coordinated enough to close out leads, and are often too far behind to come back from early deficits.

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D Tier: Giants (0-8)

Abandon hope, all ye who enter here!

You know what though, I have just the motivational speaker to get Giants out of this rut.

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LMS

Written by Clement Chu

• A Tier: (-) AHQ (6-0-0) | FW (3-2-1) | TPA (3-1-2)
• B Tier: HKE (2-1-3) | (-) M17 (3-2-1) | MSE (0-4-2) | XG (2-3-1)
• D Tier: CGE (0-5-0)

Record format: (Win-Loss-Draw)

Week 4 was about muddied boundaries. In conventional wisdom, if A>B and B>C, then A must also be larger than C. In LMS C will somehow murder A and lose to D who got swept by B (real life scenario between FW, TPA, XG and M17). With ahq completely off balance and CGE staying the course, though not in a good way, there seems to be only three tiers in LMS now. The sequencing of teams still represents which I think is slightly ahead of the other, but don’t take it as a statement of a clear winner. On a less puzzling thought: Happy Lunar new year, and good luck climbing in the year of the Monkey!

LMS will rejoin on the 18th of February.

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A Tier: ahq e-Sports Club (6-0-0) | Flash Wolves (3-2-1) | Taipei Assassins (3-1-2)

For those of you not familiar with the zodiac, you might have thought this coming new year was the Year of the Clown. ahq played ridiculously off tempo, the bot lane gave up 2 vs. 2 kills in both matches. Mountain also invaded without good reason, sending his team to an 0-5 start vs. XG. If not for Ziv’s herculean carrying, I doubt they would have kept their flawless record. I worry for the sanity of last season’s MVP Ziv, as he was seen contemplating joining the team circus, hovering over a Heimerdinger pick for 43 seconds in champ select. For the first time this split, I’m bumping ahq down to an A.  

Flash Wolves split the series against HKE. The first game was the Maple show as he went 12/0/5 with a teamfight quadra on Zed. The second game could have been a textbook on laneswap play but was still lost. The culprit: An 18-minute vision ward that cost Flash Wolves multiple teamfights. The Wolves in terms of strategy are fine, they pick the right comps and make the right map movements, but they lack urgency in execution, which often makes it feel like they’re simply going through the motions.  

Rookie LilV (ADC) debuted for TPA this week, posting a 9/1/4 Kalista game and proving the hype is real. Unfortunately, his game time was cut short by a loss in the second game against MSE. BeBe came in to steady the ship and deliver a sweep of XGamers. Coach Sim has been going back to basics by demanding vision ward purchases, which shows since TPA has the best WPM (0.75) and WKPM (0.34) stats. But it appears that his players are still grappling how to use this vision edge as Morning continues with terrible teleports and the team inexplicably forfeited Dragons covered in pinks.

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B Tier: Hong Kong eSports (2-1-2) | Machi (3-2-1) | Midnight Sun (0-4-2) | XGamers (2-3-1) 

HongKong eSports has now tied with Machi, TPA, and the Flash Wolves. I find them to be a hard team to rank, because they’re losing most of the time in their matches, but manage to scrap out wins in the end. They are the reverse Coast. Strengths: clutch shot calling and great vision plays. Weaknesses: volatile performances from everyone but Rokenia, who’s been consistently good. Teamfighting is hit or miss based on how long GodKwai survives.

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Machi had a fairly straight forward win versus CGE win this week. M17 utilized Apex’s Lulu in combination with BoBo’s Fiora both games, a tried and true composition. I never would have believed it myself last season, but when Dreamer isn’t making a highlight reel, BoBo looks like the best player on M17. He dominated the split push and was unstoppable in team fights. Week 5 will see this improving squad go head-to-head with a shaky Flash Wolves.

Midnight Sun’s sudden awakening has to be the biggest story this week. Finally solidifying their rosters in the past week, CorGi and Kaiwing are rocking out lane wins in bot, thoroughly outplaying ahq’s duo. Kaiwing’s Thresh deserves a special mention for accuracy. Wulala also looked like the better jungler against TPA, enjoying a 90% kill participation to tie the series. Their goal in break time should be working on more compositions, as it doesn’t look like they have a comp when Corki and Viktor are both banned for M1ssion.

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XGamers had their toughest week yet as they played both ahq and TPA. Unfortunately they didn’t manage a single win, despite considerable leads in both ahq games. Yo’s positioning has been worrying, and the rest of the team doesn’t seem like they can ditch him to cut losses when they should.  Lane swapping will be another lesson to overcome. Highlights for this team is top laner Nexus’ two solo kills of Ziv on Olaf.

D Tier: Cougar eSports (0-6-0)

CGE changed two players on the roster, XUE for top lane and CandyBB for support. Former top laner AJ left the team. There were hints of improvements, stretches versus Machi where no one was being featured on a kill cam. The problem is, with MSE knocking on TPA’s door and XGamers already two tiers away, they have no one to catch up to in the standings.

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LPL

Written by Indiana "Froskurinn" Black

• S Tier: QG (5-0) | (+) EDG (3-1)
• A Tier: RNG (4-1)
• B Tier: SS (3-2) | WE (3-2) | iG (3-1)
• C Tier: M3 (2-3) | (-) OMG (2-3) | (-) VG (2-3) | EPA (1-4)
• D Tier: LGD (1-4) | HYG (0-5)

The LPL had a break this past week due to Lunar New Year. They'll be back next week, and their Power Rankings will resume on February 23!

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LCK

Written by Alex Manisier

• S Tier: (+) ROX (6-0)
• A Tier: KTR (4-1) | SKT (4-2)
• B Tier: (-) JAG (5-2) | LZ (3-3) | SSG (4-3)
• C Tier: CJ (2-3) | Afreeca (1-5) | EMF (1-5)
• D Tier: SBENU (0-6)

If the last few weeks of Champions helped to answer some outstanding questions we had about the power level of Korea's pro teams, Week 4 just created questions instead. Are Samsung really, really the real deal? Are SKTelecom T1's losses just momentary hiccups? And what roster should Longzhu be running? Ultimately, we only made one change to the tiers -- dropping Jin Air to B Tier to put them in line with Samsung, whom we feel are their closest counterparts.

Korea might actually be the easiest region to create a strict power ranking for at the moment. Most teams lose to teams that they should lose to, and beat teams that they should be beating. But we're not really in the business of putting arbitrary numbers next to names anymore -- if you're interested in that, feel free to shoot me a tweet.

Also, happy Lunar New Year! Did you know that all teams that took hanbok pictures in celebration of this wonderful holiday were A Tier or above? Take the hint, SBENU.

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S Tier: (+) ROX Tigers (6-0)

As the end of Round 1 draws near, the ROX Tigers are painting an eerily similar image to that of Champions Spring 2015, where they concluded the first round of matches without dropping a single series. There's no IEM or Team WE to upset them this time around, but ROX are looking just as great right now as they did a year ago.

ROX's single game loss to Afreeca this week came from an abnormally poor draft in which they picked a three marksman/two support comp, only to get promptly bodied by the CC chain of Mickey's Twisted Fate and SnowFlower's Thresh. It's an unusual loss to be sure, and we're not in the business of making excuses for our favourite Korean teams, but the vigor with which the Tigers came back in Game 3 suggests there's not too much to worry about.

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A Tier: KT Rolster (4-1), SKTelecom T1 (4-2)

It was a fairly uneventful week for the A Tier teams as they spent their days beating up on some of the lower ranked teams in the LCK, but we did get a chance to learn more about them. KT showed us why they deserve their ranking with disciplined play against e-mFire, even after falling behind in some well chosen fights on the part of their opponents. SKT T1 looked surgical against SBENU -- yeah, it's SBENU, but the silly mistakes of Week 3 weren't anywhere to be seen.

More and more Korean teams are beginning to find wins in this heavy macro-focused metagame. We might have been too trigger-happy with the A Tier in the past, because we're not sure if teams like Jin Air or Samsung could continue to succeed were the metagame to suddenly shift. That could be the difference between an A Tier and a B Tier team -- adaptability, both ingame and throughout metagames.

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B Tier: (-) Jin Air Green Wings (5-2) | Longzhu Gaming (3-3) | Samsung Galaxy (4-3)

There are two big things we learnt from the Jin Air vs Samsung match:

1. The Graves/Lissandra combo is busted.
2. Most LCK teams are close to mastering the current metagame, and it's making for very slow games.

To tell the truth, we weren't sure if we wanted to bump Samsung up to A Tier to sit with Jin Air, rather than bringing Jin Air down to B Tier. Ultimately, we feel that teams need to show more than a methodical understanding of the current patch to be considered a real contender. All three B Tier teams might be a victim of circumstance in this case -- maybe they just haven't had the opportunity to prove themselves yet.

 

C Tier: Afreeca Freecs (1-5) | CJ Entus (2-3) | e-mFire (1-5)

It's been a good week for the weaker teams in the LCK. All three C Tier teams can be proud of their Week 4 performances -- Afreeca played their pick comp to perfection in Game 2 against ROX, CJ managed to win a match against Longzhu off the back of an amazing performance by Kramer and MadLife, and e-mFire looked spirited against KT.

In particular, CJ have the potential to start moving up the ranks as Bdd approaches his 17th birthday. But they still have a glaring hole in Bubbling's weak pathing and tendency to panic in clutch scenarios. Similarly, Afreeca and e-mFire have problems snowballing leads without favourable team comps. They'll need to work on these issues to start challenging Korea's middle tier.

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D Tier: SBENU Sonicboom (0-6)

I'd offer a personal apology for hyping up Flawless, but there was really no indication at the start of the season that SBENU would start out this rocky. To be fair, their role this week was basically to be SKT T1's punching bag after the reigning world champions stumbled to a 2-1 win against e-mFire, and they did play the role well.

We may as well reiterate SBENU's problems in case you want to watch them for any possible development: they don't seem to have a good concept of how to play as a team in this heavy team-oriented metagame. Unless they figure it out, we're looking forward to seeing Ever replace them for the Summer.

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International

In past years, players on the bench have been mostly forced to enjoy the sights and sounds of professional League without playing a game. But in 2015, Faker and Easyhoon's rotation in the mid lane game other teams a glipmse into what a successful time share could look like. This season there are other situations where substitute players have taken the lime light and run with it.

ahq eSports Club

Roster

• Top: Ziv
• Jungle: Mountain
• Mid: Westdoor | Chawy
• ADC: AN | RD
• Support: Albis

Key Roster Change: Westdoor <--> Chawy

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"Westdoor Blue, Chawy Red" has been the answer given every time from Hulk, ahq’s manager, when asked who will start the night’s match. It’s been coach Backstairs stated goal this season to create a Faker/Eazyhoon-esque rotation in the midlane. The Westdoor/Chawy rotation is the probably the first of it’s kind in player substitutions, and one of the most interesting examples in multi-game series strategy. The rotation: Westdoor starts when ahq plays on the Blue side, Chawy starts on the Red side.

The reason for this is player rotation is two fold. First, ahq wants to avoid ban pick difficulties on Red side with Westdoor. Second, they need more strategic diversity in compositions. Westdoor is a specialized assassin player that forgoes laning phases to roam and skirmish. The size of his champion pool has always been a point of criticism, as he sticks to certain champions regardless of meta. In Taiwan, the name "Westdoor" is interchangeable with champions like Twisted Fate and Fizz. The closest comparison of Westdoor would be a Dade, dedicated and magnificent on a few champions, doesn’t touch others. At this point in his career, it’s almost become part of the allure of Westdoor’s character, the story of a flawed hero who works with limitations to achieve the unthinkable. Westdoor is relatable, because unlike Faker, he is portrayed as merely mortal. But give a man a Fizz, and he’ll still kill a god.

Historically speaking, ban picks have always been more difficult for Red Side. There hasn’t been a single team that has chosen to play Red side over Blue at World Champion events, even though the higher seed technically has the option to do so. This is probably with good reason, as by the time Quarterfinals were completed in 2015’s Worlds, Blue enjoyed a 61.9% win rate.  Conventional wisdom dictates that Blue side gets to target bans at enemy players, while Purple uses its bans to deal with current power picks, essentially creating an unbalance where Blue is allowed to throw punches, but Red can only use headbutts. For ahq, this effect is magnified when Westdoor plays Red. The enemy team can deny four of Westdoor’s champions (with first pick included), and then pick up either a hard lane/composition counter or a power pick left open. Westdoor has shown at most 5 champions in a given patch. This magnitude of champion select disadvantage would prove lethal for ahq in international level competition.

From a player and fan perspective, Westdoor has always been a top performer. From a coaching angle however, his flaws in the champion pool size becomes too hard to ignore. In last split’s MVP voting, given to team coaches, Westdoor managed a single 3rd place vote. The best mid wasn’t Flash Wolve’s Maple either, it was TPA’s Chawy.

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Chawy is a veteran with over ten years of playing professional esports. Originally from Singapore Sentinels, he was the became the biggest trade of the off-season when he donned the ahq jacket. Part of his drive as a player comes from keeping it fresh. Chawy’s an experimental player that had few creative outlets in TPA’s rigid Korean coaching structure. He’s delivered TPA’s first win versus ahq last split on Nocturne, while holding a league best CSD@10 for a mid laner at 3.93 last season. Lane dominant, hungry and resourceful, Chawy was the perfect match.

The effect on the team has been so far so good. ahq sit at a perfect 12 wins, with Chawy and Westdoor earning 6 a piece. On the opening week Chawy brought out poke oriented Lux and Zilean, while Westdoor showcased his Twisted Fate. The biggest difference was on CKPM and, with Chawy ahq could finally play slow with waveclear mid, clocking in at 0.36. With Westdoor, a much faster 0.76. Composition wise, ahq now fields more meta-friendly teams such as Lulu/Fiora and AN can run less lane dominant carries such as Ezreal and Ashe.

Execution wise, ahq are clearly still crisper with Westdoor. Mountain and AN still anticipate a mid-lane roam when going aggressive (Note: I’m not saying their aggression is always smart, just that Westdoor would’ve followed). The team farms an average of 58.5 CS less by 20 minutes with Westdoor, which suggest they’re grouping and roaming more frequently.

Though ahq’s goals of preserving Westdoor’s strengths while expanding on play-style options has been successful so far, the question still looms over the two stars. There is a Chinese proverb that states: One mountain cannot hold two tigers. In League where player rotations are a rarity rather than a necessity, the danger is always that one lives in the other’s shadow. Since the LMS regular season is played in a BO2 format, it means that both Westdoor and Chawy will get the same minutes, for now. The question is when it comes down to a Game 5 in a Playoff series, who will be playing on the stage, and who will be watching in the stands?

Longzhu Gaming

Roster

• Top: Expession | Flame
• Jungle: Chaser | Crash
• Mid: CoCo | Frozen
• ADC: Cpt Jack | Fury
• Support: Pure | Zzus

Key Roster Changes 

Flame <--> Expession | Chaser <--> Crash | ​CoCo <--> Frozen

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If you made it through Week 4 without seeing Game 2 of Longzhu vs CJ Entus, you're in for a treat. Longzhu made the most of their ten-man roster by swapping Expession, Chaser and CoCo for Flame, Crash and Frozen. In the second professional game of his career, Crash put a clinic on Bubbling's Elise with his Nidalee, invading his jungle and stealing away the CJ jungler's camps right under his eyes.

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It was the kind of performance that you occasionally run into when jungling in solo queue -- the rare game where you're queued against an LCS jungler ranking up one of his smurfs. I couldn't help but liken it to Faker's debut game in Champions Spring 2013, where the unknown 17-year-old made Korea's best mid laner look like Swiss cheese with all the Javelin Tosses he was landing.

Fanboy hype aside, Longzhu's decision to substitute three players when down a game was a move full of chutzpah. When you make a mid-match substitution, you're taking out a player who might be mentally affected by a particularly nasty loss, and replacing them with a player who's keen to get some time on stage. The tradeoff is the loss in the team dynamic you've built up, but often it can be worth it -- and for Longzhu, it was, even if they ended up losing Game 3.

Is Crash going to lead Longzhu to the championship they've been searching for? Probably not -- it's too soon for that. But the fact that Longzhu are taking all ten of their players seriously and playing the best roster for each game is a sign that things are beginning to change in Korea. Longzhu just need a big win to show that they are the pioneers of the Korea Nouveau -- a region where disciplined teams like Jin Air could coexist with innovative, experimental teams like Qiao Gu.

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Which substitute players do you think have elevated their teams? Who has the inside track for Playoffs?

Let us know in the comments or on Twitter. 

Frank Fields is a Senior Editor for Lolesports.com. He has worked in esports as a player, manager, owner, and content creator in multiple game titles and various organizations since 2003. Feel free to talk to him about Power Rankings, Smash, Magic: The Gathering, League or anything else on Twitter.