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Dignitas Signs Shiphtur and ZionSpartan

Riot··0 votes·5,249 views

In the most significant talent acquisition of an already exciting offseason, Dignitas has acquired former Team Coast stars ZionSpartan and Shiphtur.

Both players have been LCS stars for over a year and are currently touted as two of the best players in North America, with Shiphtur earning the All League 2nd Team Award for the 2014 LCS spring split. This move is perhaps the most notable talent acquisition in the history of the LCS.

Dignitas Owner and General Manager, Michael O'Dell:

"We are excited to sign two top class players in ZionSpartan and Shiphtur and I look forward to seeing them team up with our guys for the Summer Split. This was not an easy decision to make but I hope it shows our intent to compete at World’s in October. I would like to thank our friends at Team Coast for making this acquisition an easy process to complete and we wish Coast all the best in their efforts to regain an LCS spot. With these additions to the squad and also with Scarra in as Full time Coach we feel that we have a good chance to succeed in LCS."

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Coast Owner and General Manager, David Slan:

"Despite our disappointing finish in the LCS, we were extremely fortunate to have a team of talented players. Rather than have these two guys miss the Summer LCS Split, we made the decision to allow ZionSpartan and Shiphtur to be acquired by Team Dignitas. We hope that our fans will appreciate how difficult this decision has been for all of us in the Coast family. We wanted what was best for the team, but also what was best for ZionSpartan and Shiphtur. Dignitas is a quality organization, and we feel this is an opportunity our players should be allowed to pursue. Our problem wasn’t skill level. But we were missing team synergy. We need to rebuild with that in mind—and that rebuilding process will begin right away.

We have a wonderfully supportive group of fans who’ve stuck with us. We have fabulous sponsors who believe in our philosophy of good sportsmanship, inclusiveness, and positive attitude. And Coast is committed to the e-Sports community. It’s been a tough couple of weeks, but Team Coast will survive and thrive again. We will soon be announcing our roster that will compete in the next Challenger Series."

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Esports Manager, Nick Allen:

"As fans of the league ourselves, it's exciting for us to see transfers like this one. Winning now is more important than ever, and as the general talent level continues to rise in both NA and EU, winning has become more difficult, resulting in some meaningful roster movements.

Teams pursuing acquisition of new talent is a strong sign of the maturity and increasing sustainability of the competitive ecosystem in the LCS, and we are excited to see the impact that this transfer (and any others yet to occur) will have on the Summer Split and Worlds. ZionSpartan and Shiphtur both clearly demonstrated their talent over the course of the Spring Split, and we look forward to watching their performance as members of Team Dignitas."

Update to Story: This means that Cruzer will be stepping down from the main lineup and switch to a sub position, while Scarra will move to a full-time coaching position

108 Comments

Deadz ft 2chainz30 votes

Very good desicion by Coast, I respect their Owner/GM and he is doing a good thing of letting their two greats be in the summer split with Dig. Jax summoner 6 summoner 4

Illya and Miyu25 votes

DIGNICOAST Hype Ahri Jax

YouGotCyrekt38 votes

Dignitoast* Get it right

Pewyr8 votes

Mmmm, Toast

aldamonEX3 votes

Toast OP! Riot plzz

Hiruni3 votes

Your toast has no dignity.

Tharión4 votes

raise your coasters

Lightingstrike1920 votes

Ahri item 3100

Jorrk18 votes

Dignitas with a HUGE power play for the summer split of 2014, picking up these two top tier solo laners should allow them to compete with the big three c9, clg, and tsm and they will be able to throw thier weight around in the games against the new lcs teams, clb and lmq, this should help to cement them as one of the best teams in the lcs

Jathiel5 votes

I agree completely. I myself have never been a huge fan of DIG, but it is fairly obvious to tell that this season they used Crumbz and their botlane to snowball games. Now they can have a good presence around the whole map without being reliant on someone to carry. They may have some shot-calling issues still, but with two new players and Scarra in a permanent coaching position they may be able to fix that.

DrSergeantPepper1 votes

Dream on rank 6 incoming..1-4 will be c9/lmq/tsm/clg...and last two eg and walking zed..or whatever they are called now. the overrated here are actually shiptur and zion.. just watch his game and tell me when was he acutally crushing his lane against the big three xDDD

Delete the Elite7 votes

LMQ is really being over-hyped. I think they can make an impressive start; however, they're untested against the Top 3, unless you want to reference solo queue matches... :P

Wbhaugs2 votes

I do not think you can say they are "untested" against the top 3. All the pro's were talking about how they were taking scrims off of every team. We just have not been able to watch these scrims. But i think that they will have a hard time beating the top 3 when on stage

LeafOnTheWind059 votes

Im so happy I saw this article, the only reason I was sad to see CST leave the LCS is because of zion and shiphtur, both of whom I think are easily in the top 2 or 3 in their roles (in NA at least). I think shiphtur might even be the single best mid laner in the lcs, dudes a rock

3X15T3NC315P41N6 votes

Zion and Ship was way too good for the rest of Coast anyway. Coast bottom lane is a joke, and NintendudeX is so terrible I'm laughing out loud everytime he plays. Trading their best 2 players to Dig should make a stronger team.

FastSkills3 votes

I Hated NintendudeX, he was a (-) ion of Coast. He was so selfDestructive.

Tilted Cause RNG5 votes

Zion is a good pick-up, I think shiphtur is too hit and miss. Never did like coast that much, cause it always seemed to be a 1 man team . . .

Jathiel16 votes

You've got that backwards mate.

Splatticus3 votes

idk, bit of both really, zion had some great games on jax and lee sin, and being a top lane applies a lot of pressure, shiphtur's really good at getting picks but certainly had some issues against prolly

Imperio Eboy2 votes

Coast was like 5 really good players, didnt work together in team.... such as maybe SHC in EULCS
Shiphtur is in my opinion the best Skilled-Midlaner in NA...still not the best in team...

Thamios1 votes

This I can totally agree with. My biggest issues with Coast and frankly why I never liked watching them is because they lost almost all their games that either Zion or Shiphtur didn't carry, save for a few where they were able to control the game through strong roams or just having a better scaling team by 30 minutes.

Coast was a team that was made up of players that wanted to carry, but really lacked any one leader to unify the team when behind. Their whole strategy seemed to be "We have two power-players, you can't shut them both down" and then either 1-4 split or 1-3-1 split. This strategy seemed to be the only thing that worked for them throughout the split.

Shiphtur may be the most skilled midlaner, but his downfall is his shallow champion pool and inability to quickly adapt to the meta. Shiphtur just got unlucky with a lot of other midlaners with the Gragas nerfs and then Zed just falling out of favor with the Exhaust changes, but having only two other champs and Ahri after 4.5 being up for 3 weeks is almost inexcusable for a pro player.

What I feel was the biggest downfall of Coast isn't the two Dig picked up... however I feel that these two are going to be going in with big egos that need to be shot down by either crumbzz or a coach because Coast was practically built around them. Nintendude could never pick jungle champs that didn't farm well because he would cover mid when shiphtur would roam, and Wiz and Daydreamin seemed to always be outshined by the others despite their actual skill, and played to not lose their lanes and let the other carry.

Trauts Sudaru4 votes

sooo...what happens to cruzer then? did he get fired/benched/sub positon etc etc

Ñegroid10 votes

Switched to sub.

illiji6 votes

good, he's bad anyway. he's hugely overrated

Delete the Elite8 votes

I wouldn't say he's bad. He just lacked having a presence and/or winning his lane consistently. He showed up BIG for about 4-5 games, but was kinda flat in the rest. It happens. There are worse top laners out there than Cruzer though. At least he's good enough to fill the role on a LCS team. That's something, right?

Runesage992 votes

He has a limited champion pool: trundle, jax, shyvana. That's it. He's still a strong player, just not really on the level of hardcore lcs.

LilConqueror225 votes

You're forgetting his best champ in Lee Sin

Delete the Elite1 votes

He's also good with Ryze...

FastSkills4 votes

Thank You Dignitas, These players deserved to stay even if i hate team Coast because of the junglodex. With 3 potentials carry and a strong jungler (Crumbzz) in Dignitas, I am sure they going to be BIG and STRONG in this summer split. Smart Move by Dig. Curse might do his move to get Mancloud. By the way hate all those teams, but i am an NA fan and would like NA to have a chance at World. I hated the fact that NA LCS is CLOUD9.........................TSM-CLG...........................................................................and the others

Ssataniko4 votes

The NA LCS was C9, TSM, CLG and"the others" in the same way EULCS was Fnatic/Gambit "and the others." There can only be so many TOP TIER teams at once because someone has to lose. And CURSE would almost surely never replace Voyboy, who performed reasonably well, w/ Mancloud. I would love to see Mancloud and XSmithie back in the LCS on good teams but there may not be any spots for them. Ideally SK Gaming should replace their mediocre Mid Jezis with Mancloud, but EU teams are way too snotty and provincial to acknowledge when their is superior talent in NA, so that will never happen.

ShAdOw ChUnK5 votes

Last Split you had about 6 Teams playing on a very similar level in EU. The're all only 1 Win defference between each Team. In NA you had C9 > TSM > CLG > Dig/Crs > Coast > EG/XDG where most games where won/lost before starting. But I'm looking forwards to see more balancing in NA now. Maybe DIG (and LMQ) can contest with the higher teams.

FastSkills4 votes

By the way remind me... Was gambit make it to top 4. I thought they almost make it to relagation. THey a strong team though!!!!

FN AeonChron7 votes

Aside from the bottom 2 EU teams, there was what like 4 gmaes between 1st and 6th and like 5 different teams held first over the course of the season, vs tsm and c9 in NA

Nhresh2 votes

That's why SK got 1st position in spring split regular season. Jesiz is a good mid laner.

Splatticus1 votes

really? Jesiz seems average out of LCS mids to me

GordoniusIII2 votes

he may not be the strongest mechanical player but in teamplay he is one of the best like everybody in sk`s roster excpet for their bottom lane

Star Wardz4 votes

Shiphtur is an amazing playmaker which is something dignitas lacks aside from Crumbz.

Kalmageddon6673 votes

Damnit, I wanted Shiphtur to go to Curse and Vooby move to top.

Dokmazing2 votes

yeah!! and quas goes to CLG i don't know how curse would feel about that LOL

FastSkills2 votes

Voyboy is an average player, he has some good match but he is not very consistent. I am not sure is Quas can play a better top than Voyboy, but in my opinion, Voyboy should step down for a better curse. with a better mid laner...

Delete the Elite2 votes

Quas deserves to be on a good team. He's the only bright spot for Curse, at the moment. (Cop played consistently though).

Pewyr2 votes

Actually I think that it's the Quas, Dominate, + Bunny show. Voy's been pretty bad this split losing match-ups even after getting a lead from a jungler gank. And Cop has the sort of mentality of the old Doublelift where he just farms to get relevant. And then once he gets there he doesn't have the same impact that Double does.

IMO if they go all the way and swap out their entire roster from the last summer split they'd be a much better team.

finallylupus3 votes

I'm fine with Zion heading over to Dig. Zion's a great player with poor shotcalling ability, so put him on a team with a decent shotcaller in Crumbz and Zion will be great. I've got very mixed feelings about shiphtur, especially after he threw their relegation series really hard. I honestly don't think he deserves it based on his attitude.

FastSkills3 votes

I was never a coast fan but I can tell you, shiphtur has the potential to be the best mid in NA. And one of the reason Dignitas looks scarry is the pain that Zion&Shiphtur has endured. Those two guys always take a lead but can't never close the games well cause their carry is never too strong and their junglerdudex is always selfwinningDestructor of all games. When joining to Dig hey leave behind them (a dark past) the fear of being out of the LCS, and one of the things they find right now is MOTIVATION. shiphtur knows that if he does not perform at a Godlike level, scarra will replace him, So as ZionSpartan with Cruzer. Knowing that their spot is not quite secure will motivate them to be Legendary. Eventually what Coast could not do is closing the games when they have a lead, with a good and experienced ADC like Imaqtpie this problem is quite solved. But let wait for the split.... Cause it is going to be super excited and hard for every NA team, with Cloud 9 effort to challenged international team, CLG new top Laner, Zion&Shiphtur moves, LMQ being the only chinese Represent (those guys play the most solo queue than any other challenger player), Curse will of becoming better and EG desire to represent EU fairly.... It is going to be HARD. I do not expect any team to past 20 wins this split. We'll see....

Jae 43 votes

Grammar? Syntax? Spacebar?

Titanius2 votes

Scarra finally gets his retirement that Goldenglue wouldn't give him.

ajaxthelittle1 votes

i still dont understand why dig is so intent on getting rid of Scarra. I think he is still one of the top 4 mids, behind berg hai and link, but those guys are godlike. I think his mechanics are far greater than that of shiphtur. just dont get it.

MajorMajora2 votes

The point is that while he is a great mid lamer, he's an even better coach. They want to move him to the coaching position. They had to switch him back to mid for playoffs for reasons I'm still hazy about, but they want him back as a coach as soon as possible, and getting a strong, experienced, free agent mid lamer is an incredible opportunity that was practically made for them. And, since the two have worked together and he's an incredible top lamer, they picked up Zion as well.

Runesage996 votes

Scarra is a much more seasoned and experienced player than Shiphtur. However, Scarra would make some amazing decisions for Dignitas as a coach. And they're not "getting rid of him." He's still there :) Shiphtur and Zion are both going to carry in their own respective ways. Can you imagine a gank from Crumbzz into a Zion lane?? WOW scary

FastSkills2 votes

What the selfDestructivedudeX could not do. each time Team Coast want to take a lead, Nitendudex destroy it.

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