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2018 NA LCS Rosters thoughts?

woodvsmurph·11/24/2017, 5:09:11 PM·1 votes·5,556 views
The NA LCS free agent deadline: all confirmations in one post. * r/leagueoflegends

Been looking for awhile to find out who is supposedly going where since so many new teams/names and players having to find a new organization. Just found this and it is nicely organized list: https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/7ejpks/the_na_lcs_free_agent_deadline_all_confirmations/

What's everyone's thoughts on this so far? I have a few I'll list below. TSM - complete roster which is nice. Definitely going to be some hype around the new additions to the team and probably a rivalry with whatever team Doublelift ends up on. Their bot lane probably isn't any better locally, but maybe hold up better at worlds? Their jungler - if the team can pull off synergy - should be an upgrade; however, this also depends on the meta I think.

C9 - complete roster. Only toplaner is new provided they start the same jungler as last season (don't see why they wouldn't). Not sure how he will stack up, but if he can at least match the best NA toplaners, there should be no problem seeing a similar team performance as last season and another world's appearance.

CLG - support mia? Maybe they sign aphro again, but I personally hope not. It's not that I dislike the guy, but he has had a rough season last year and honestly overhyped the year before that. Sure some amazing and flashy plays - at best performance, he's been a clear #1 support - but at worst, he's cost his team the game. And sure you can say that about any role - so why not let the support have the chance to be the game-changing carry sometimes? I'm with people on this... just not when he regularly (compared to everyone else of similar caliber) picks supports that are of poor synergy for the comp and assumes he can pull it off vs good opponents just because he's Aphromoo. Ex: 4 squishies and last pick janna support into enemy team with multiple hard engage and burst damage. Not ever going to end well unless you snowball super hard early and keep the tempo rolling non-stop. So finding a new support might just help clg.

Echo fox - well this is it... no froggen. Honestly again glad to see the guy go. Ever since he made his EU super team, he's looked less and less impactful. People don't just play exclusively around midlane anymore nor can you just stall and farm for 40 min, win 1 fight and end the game in most cases. But that's the type of play Froggen seems to want to do. Maybe they can finally adapt to the meta with a newer midlaner and be a more respectable team. Excited to see brandini back in toplane. The downside? Mash never seems to play with a team for a full year and the teams he joins never seem to be above mid-tier for an entire split. Then again, goldenglue proved people can kinda change.

Fly quest - incomplete roster. Team feels patched together. Don't see them being in upper half of league.

Liquid - complete roster. Impact has looked past his prime for awhile now. Even when top die was a fresh meme, he didn't look to be top tier at worlds. But if he can manage to be on-par with his opponents and the team can synergize, this team looks scary. Xmithie honestly makes Pobelter into a different player. If he can guide his team like he did with immortals last year (and maybe not lock himself into the meta at the cost of what makes the team's playstyle work like last year at worlds in some games), they just might be a scarier team than imt of last season. And no offense to Cody Sun (he's decent, but not top tier); Olleh finally has a top tier (meme's aside) adc to work with - one whose capable 2v2 and being left 1v2 while Olleh roams. Who starts though (top, jg, and mid) is a big question and will they continue to start if they have one bad game or will there be musical chairs? And will doublelift fit in on the team and have good synergy or will he try to go back to his splitpush roots? Those are the two big concerns I see.

Optic gaming - cobbled together team. POE is talented, but he never stays with an org for long. He's good, but not enough to solo carry vs other top tier teams. Bot lane I don't expect flashy plays or early snowballing, but they shouldn't give away any easy kills either; a tough lane to gank successfully. Probably a middle of the pack team.

100 thieves - looking for some big names bot lane to finish off an all-star cast. By star power alone, on paper you'd put this team in top 4 provided they get a decent bot lane. But didn't we say that about DIG last season and look how long it took them to get their act together. I'd say they are kind of a win-lane, win-game team so far. When they get a good lead - even against top teams, they will look amazing. When they don't, they will get meticulously deconstructed by opponents of similar individual skill but better team cohesion.

12 Comments

Miror B11/25/2017, 1:46:12 AM2 votes

I'm somewhat worried about TSM, if only because the influx of new players could mean yet another year in which the blame for TSM's worlds struggles is shifted off of bjerg (people suggesting he's Tom Brady when in actuality he's Alex Smith to a tee).

Echo fox is slowly becoming my favorite team if only for the wrong reasons. Fenix has had a habit of being hyper-aggressive, DD's had a habit of being hyper-aggressive, if they manage to sign huni then he too is hyper-aggressive, and their botlane has shown willingness to play off-meta and hyper-aggressive picks. Combined, this is a team that'll either get caught out and have 20min losses, or destroy newly-forming rosters and win in 20mins. For someone like me, this team will be a must-watch every single week.

ajhockey11/25/2017, 1:20:38 AM1 votes

Myself, I'm very worried about how CLG will get on without Aprho unless they get another solid support to fill the gap. Ignar is probably the only other support left who could maybe fill the gap decently. Reignover should be an upgrade over Omar, especially if he returns to form at all.

I think moving on from Froggen is the right move from FOX, building around him wasn't working.

I think OpTic has a reasonable chance to be decently successful. Could very well make the playoffs.

Licorice was bound to make the NALCS at some point. He could be a big time rookie for C9.

Clutch could be stacked, but it really depends on if their botlane is an upper half botlane again. Also, their mid and top lanes could change a lot. Froggen could fit well there, with Lira leading the way and Froggen playing more of an "alternate captain" role.

III BAKURYU III 11/25/2017, 7:15:15 AM1 votes

I feel like the only team that feels like they lost in this free agency battle, trades etc is Cloud 9. They replaced Impact and Contractz for real question mark players such as Licorice and Wiggily and the only real decent pick-up is Selfie only for him to really have to fight to earn an already shortened split(18 games total) spot.
Other than that, each roster seems to have great depth in which the 18 games kinda wastes that if only Riot continued or combined Spring and Summer splits together we could have seen so many players/plays and interesting match-ups unfold. Sadly, most of these players won't really get a chance to play because of the short split. Oh, and don't give me that Challenger scene for such talent because I don't watch nor care much for that, it's like watching WNBA over NBA or something.

ChompyWulf11/25/2017, 11:44:26 PM1 votes

Gonna take exception to one bit from original post. Olleh did not get a top tier adc to support. While you could either bash Cody for rookie mistakes or praise him for an overall good year, let's be fair and admit he held the lane fine solo when Olleh did his roaming and playmaking.

This was the year best set up for Doublelift to cement himself as a great. He has been famous for trash talk, playing aggressive and hyper carry champs. The meta was perfect for this at Worlds, with adcs and the Ardent meta, as well as probably the easiest group they would ever have to make quarterfinals. Dont forget he was also the shot caller. And he failed horribly for the third Worlds appearance in a row with little chance he'll ever see as ripe an opportunity ever again.

It's time to stop praising DLift as the greatest ADC when he simply isn't.

anonymous11911/26/2017, 4:02:05 AM1 votes

I think almost every roster patched some of the major holes they had with imported players.

Starting with TSM.. I guess it was my understanding that pretty much every TSM player has said many many times that they though sven was too nice. To me this means he wasn't giving enough push back to say what he wanted to do and was instead was just following the orders of the rest of the team.

I always thought the most impressive thing from mike was his after game interviews. The guy is a very calm, collected and articulated speaker. Most young players are either scared shitless to do anything or dardoch level of cockyness. He is by far the most untested element of the new TSM roster, but I have hope for him.

Doublelift and bjerg both commented that biofrost was completely silent in games and it was a huge problem for the team. I think mithy was a really good pick up for a more vocal support player.

I don't think sven is a straight upgrade over dlift, but sven has far less baggage with him. Dlift does amazing things and terrible things and you aren't always quite sure which to expect at any given time. I think sven is closer in line with sneaky and stixxay in that they're consistently good adcs even if they don't have as many wtf moments for good or bad.

I think TSM stays #1.

I give #2 to team liquid.

They took the core of imt in xmithie, pob and olleh then added doublelift and impact. I think this roster will be much better at playing around bot lane than tsm was. Bjerg and hauntzer took a lot of resources away from doublelift who is one of the best laners in NA. If you give doublelift a jungler like xmithie hovering around bot they will dominate lanes. Impact is an amazing top laner when left alone on an island. He plays the lane smart.

#3 is clg

It's essentially the same lineup but with reignover fixing the dumpster fire that was jungle. Aphro has re-signed yet and that would be a hit if he went elserwhere.

#4 c9

I don't know their top laner and so that's a huge question mark to me. However, they've been hinting at bringing rush back. Their core players with rush in the jungle is always a roster you can't under estimate.

I think 5-10 is a lot harder to say. Most of those rosters have weaknesses in my opinion.

I think optic could have done better than lemon for support. The guy really needs to transition to coaching.

Meteos has had commitment problems to lol in the past and I'm not sure 100 thieves will fix that. I also wonder what bot lane is left for them to take.

Clutch is mostly team NV with the addition of febiven. It felt like most games Lira was having to drag his team kicking and screaming into a good mid game. I'm not sure if that will change even with the new mid/top laner.

Golden Guardians just looks weak. I don't know why contractz left c9 for this.

Flyquest has the possibility of being a solid middle of the pack team. Both of FQ's solo laners last season were pretty meh and both got upgraded.

If echo fox gets huni that will be an interesting team. I think dardoch needs to stop getting more chances after he's burned so many bridges due to toxic behavior.