Curse Academy is a team that has been in a continuous state of flux since its inception in late 2013. Despite near continuous roster turnover, however, the squad still managed a fourth place finish in the NA CS Spring Playoffs. Following the Spring season, Curse Academy's management decided to rebuild the team with a hefty focus on proven LCS talent. That team has been on a warpath since it formed, and has its sights set on breaking into the LCS.
meet the players
Top: Christian "Cris" Rosales
Cris is a known commodity from his time on Velocity eSports during the Summer 2013 LCS split. Since that team disbanded, Cris has bounced around teams such as vVv Gaming while maintained an extremely high solo queue ranking. It was Cris's Jax turning into an unstoppable split pusher that was a key component in CA's comeback against Denial eSports during in the round-of-ten of the NA Challenger Series, giving them a new lease on Challenger life. As the top lane continues to become the focal point of strategic innovation, Curse Academy will lean on Cris to brave the turbulent top lane waters.
Jungle: Brandon "SaintVicious" DiMarco
The former Team Curse jungler is back in the jungle after returning to the LCS as a support for a brief stint the 2014 Spring Split. While not being known as the most prolific Smiter in the jungle, he brings an active mind that has proven itself on the analyst desk for tournaments such as IEM Sao Paulo earlier in the year. The switch to support during the spring was primarily to improve Curse's shot-calling. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite pan out as well as Team Curse wanted it to, but his ability to make calls is a huge boon for Curse Academy.
Zachary "mancloud" Hoschar
Mancloud was last seen in the LCS on XDG, and looks to have a bit of a renaissance as the Curse Academy. While he does have some lingering taint from XDG's rough spring split, he also held the record for most kills in a split. Mancloud has the talent, and now he has a stable structure around him to build on. He's already had a 16.5 KDA during the Play-In of the NA Challenger Series, and is only looking to build on that. SaintVicious's love of aggressive junglers and mancloud's ability to snowball out of control off of a successful gank make the combination a devastating one going forward.
Tristan "xPecake" Cote-Lalumiere
xPacake is only member of the team with no previous LCS experience, and the one who will need to develop the most. xPecake is a noted Jinx player in solo queue, which Curse Academy’s NA CS Play-In opponents definitely noted, banning The Loose Cannon against the ADC. He defaulted back to Caitlyn, a pick that he isn’t quite as comfortable on. Luckily for xPecake, the rest of the team should be able to carry the load as his champion pool experiences growing pains. The resources surrounding all of the Team Curse squads should also accelerate xPecake toward being an LCS-level AD carry as well.
Michael "Bunny FuFuu" Kurylo
Bunny FuFuu was universally praised by Team Curse teammates for his work ethic during the 2014 Spring Split after he joined in the middle of the split. Despite being universally well-liked, he landed on Curse Academy when Team Curse acquired veteran Alex "Xpecial" Chu from Team SoloMid. It falls heaviest on Bunny to guide xPecake along in the bottom lane. Unfortunately, he may not have the experience to do so, as he doesn't have very much LCS seat time himself. The pairing bears watching as Curse Academy continues to compete in the NA Challenger Series.
Curse Academy in the LCS?
Curse Academy in the LCS is a very interesting prospect. They’ll have fewer jitters on the big stage to work though since four of the five players have some seat time. The big deciding factor as to whether Curse Academy could make noise in the LCS is how well they can adapt to the strategic paradigm at the time. Cris is an LCS veteran and solo queue star, but the lane swap meta that is so popular in the pro scene is practiaclly non-existent in solo queue. Can Cris adapt to that? He'll have to, considering botching a lane swap is the fastest way to lose the game right now. The questions do not end there. Can xPecake and Bunny FuFuu develop into a force in the bottom lane? The skills that Bunny displayed during the spring suggests that it could happen, but there isn't a definitive answer.
It would fall heavily on the two constants on the team, mancloud in the middle lane and Saint coming out of the jungle, to help answer all of these questions. All of the pieces of a successful LCS team are on the table, so the squad just has to work hard to put the puzzle together.
We’ll see if they can work out the kinks when they will play the winner of the Team Coast vs Team Green Forest series on Sunday, June 15th. How much of the puzzle that they've managed to solve will go a long way toward deciding whether this roster is destined for the LCS, or will be subject to another overhaul at the end of the season.
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