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Weakest Split NA has had in years

x No Heart·1/12/2016, 7:00:06 AM·1 votes·1,587 views
  • C9 transitioning support and jungle roles and teaching a player currently riding the bench shotcalling.
  • Revamped TSM and TiP, replaced massive amounts of players. TiP will definitely spend this split hemorrhaging.
  • DIG, already a bottom-tier team, lost star players CoreJJ and Gamsu. Replaced with (at least arguable in the case of Apollo) weaker players.
  • Liquid lost Xpecial, meaning their star player, Piglet, needs new synergy to be built with a mediocre support. Other star player replaced with CS player, a major loss for the team.
  • CLG is up in the air with the loss of Doublelift, but synergy should still be there at least.
  • The remaining four teams, Renegades, Immortals, NRG, and Echo Fox, have either entirely new rosters or moved from the Challenger series.

In short, the only reliable team right now is TSM. Immortals and NRG show promise, C9 has a chance to surge upwards if their plan works, but the rest of the teams have been crippled through the losses of individual players or do not seem likely to succeed with entirely new rosters.

Numbers (by my estimation) 1/10 safe established team - TSM 2/10 promising established teams - C9, CLG 2/10 promising new teams - NRG, Immortals 2/10 new teams that are likely to struggle - Renegades, Echo Fox 3/10 crippled teams - TiP, DIG, Liquid 4/10 entirely new teams - Renegades, Echo Fox, NRG, Immortals 5/10 teams safe to bet against - TiP, DIG, Liquid, Renegades, Echo Fox 6/10 teams with 3+ new players - TSM, DIG, TiP, Immortals, NRG, Echo Fox

22 Comments

TurquoiseYoshi1/12/2016, 8:59:24 PM4 votes

You're pretty much implying that all of the new teams are bad. We have pretty much no idea. In addition, EVERY REGION is going through huge changes. Europe is in a much more gutted spot, SKT lost Marin (and consequently lost KeSPA), and their slayers (Ever) lost their ADC. China gained some talent but swapped around completely, and even AHQ got revamped. You can't say that NA is terrible if that same logic applies to everyone.

Ale non è male1/12/2016, 10:57:41 PM3 votes

Absolutely NO WAY next split is going to be weaker than S5 season, especially Spring Split At least you know that in next split every team except Impulse and Dig have 1 or more above average or very very good player (and there is a chance even Dig can have some pretty good player too depending on how SmittyJ/Kirei develop) If you look at the worst S5 NA team, you see that some teams actually had at best 1 LCS caliber player, and even these player were average or below Look at teams like S5 Spring like Spring Team8 (CaliTrolz on his debut), Team Coast, even Gravity with Hauntzer, Fufu and Keane on their serious competitive debut at LCS level when they weren't exactly world beaters - this not even counting Dignitas that had communication problems with Gamsu that didn't know yet english so the team had communication problems ,Winterfox that had some good player but bad team environment either and ende dup as a shit team -

This split is going to be MUCH MUCH MUCH better than that

P.S. EU S5 Spring has been better than Eu S4 Summer for sure, so you are wrong on that too

P.P.S. I'm obviously not judging S3 and below as the level was completely different from now, cause obviously in S3 LCS was just starting and the level was obviously lower

The Bíg Ticket1/12/2016, 11:40:09 AM1 votes

Liquid is gonna play Fabbbyyy instead of Piglet.

Kotex1/12/2016, 7:20:16 PM1 votes

Yea i was looking over the article and the teams are just a hot mess of "who the F" and "Why the F" Im very happy that team coast's spot was bought because this would be their 3rd-4th split where they sat at the bottom it would just be boring to see. But the the time everyone going to need to adapt to all the new faces and new roles on their roster i feel is going to look like a car crash in slow motion.

But im not saying thats what i WANT to see mind you, i really hope these unproven, or previously mediocre players step up this year and make a statement but thats unrealistic with the new relationships that need to be forged and adapted to in their work. I feel Immortals at first glance is a contender to be the top team this split.