Optimus Analysis: Who can transform themselves into an NA LCS team?

Promotion Tournament starts on Friday, March 31. Here’s my breakdown of the the bottom NA 2 LCS teams and top 2 NA CS teams participating in the 3-day tournament. 

With only 2 spots in the 2017 NA LCS Summer Split on the line, anything can happen so let’s get started roll out:

Gold Coin United - NA CS #1 seed

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Gold Coin United (GCU) was compared to Cloud 9 Challenger last split when they announced their star-studded roster headed into the NA CS Spring Split. With a high profile import player like Madlife, this team was expected to not just win - but dismantle their opposition. However the GCU that emerged over the course of the Challenger Series was far from the expectations fans had of them.

Slow to accelerate in both getting Madlife in their line up and through their early game play, Gold Coin United play a very calculated, vision-centric style of game. What this often translates into is extremely slow early games centered around strong lane-phase play and minimal pressure, thanks to Santorin’s farm-centric style of Jungling. When GCU have gotten slight advantages through farm and minion management, they begin to utilize their Jungle-Support duo to push forward vision control and take objectives whenever they catch their opponents off-guard. While this resulted in the 2nd longest average game time in the NA CS, it also gave GCU an average gold lead of 3,865 at the 25 minute mark - the largest in the North American Challenger Series.

The Gold Coin United that entered the Finals against eUnited was a different beast. While Santorin still favored his farm-centric style, he was aggressively pathing and invading to steal jungle camps away from the opposing Jungler. The lane-phase play was where they gained advantages, as Mid Laner Fenix absolutely demolished his opposition and roamed to both Top and Bottom lanes to pressure those advantages earlier and harder. While they still waited for vision control to create opportunities, their games felt much quicker and more cohesive. So while looked better and won the NA CS Finals, GCU may still struggle to establish the control they require to win games if they get set back early game.

eUnited - NA CS #2 seed

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eUnited (EUN) proved themselves to be one of the more aggressive teams during the NA CS Spring Split, able to make early game decisions based around their impactful Jungle-Mid Lane synergy and hold their own in the Top and Bottom lanes. However, this was not the case during the NA CS Spring Finals, where the early game traction was lost from eUnited’s game plan. GCU’s Mid Laner Fenix was able to expose Hampus “Fox” Myhre’s small champion pool and fundamental mistakes in his game play. Losing both sides of the Ryze vs. Cassiopeia match up let Fenix control pressure from the middle of the Rift and EUN’s normal dominating style was stifled. Combine that with Top Laner “Licorice’s more carry-oriented picks such as Rumble, and more jungle pressure bottom against Deftly and Zeyzal, eUnited fell to Gold Coin United 3 games to 1.

While their Jungle-Mid synergy was unable to bring them victory in the Finals, eUnited still have overall strong individual players across the map. However, there need to be some adjustments to the way they approach the Pick and Ban phase, starting with securing Fox or Deftly a comfortable first round pick. Lulu has risen in popularity in competitive play and has been a staple for Zeyzal all Spring Split, but may need to be given up or banned away in favor of securing the mid and ADC picks. With Licorice extremely comfortable on tanks, EUN can focus on plugging up their composition with a front line later on in the draft.

Team Liquid - NA LCS 9th place

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This is probably one of the most intimidating rosters to ever participate in the Promotion Tournament. With the amount of big names in the lineup, what Challenger team would want to stack up against the surprisingly 9th place Team Liquid (TL)? Then again, the roster is in this position for a reason.

The raw level of individual talent on the Team Liquid roster is incredible, and across the Rift they should be favored win almost any lane matchup - save for one potential weakness with Piglet in the mid lane. Although he’s shown the ability to play a wide variety of Champions, his mastery of those picks may be hard-pressed against players such as his former teammate Fenix. The team cohesion for TL has been their weak point all throughout a struggling NA LCS Spring Split. Struggling to gain advantages with Reignover - a player known for his intelligent jungle pathing and play - TL often fail to transition into a strong mid game where they strain to push any small advantages into secured objectives and won team fights. With a stronger bottom side of the map after adding Doublelift, Team Liquid was able to take down #1 TSM, but fell to #5 FlyQuest. Inconsistency is not a quality that gets teams out of the Promotion Tournament, but if this team is able to fix their issues in both their communication and their mid to late game play, there should be no questions about them making it back to the NA LCS.

Team Envy - NA LCS 10th place

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Last place Team Envy (NV) has had a tough NA LCS Spring Split. Although pre-season rankings from viewers and analysts alike never had high expectations of the team, they also never played like a team bound for the Promotion Tournament. NV was able to upset top teams including stealing games away Cloud9 and Counter Logic Gaming. While their individual players never looked bad on paper, their stat lines and in game performance show none of them had carry potential either. A lack of synergy and cohesion between their top and bottom sides of the map, even after the addition of Jungler LirA to the main squad in Week 2, was a clear issue for the team. The losses stacked up too high, and NV found themselves locked into the Promotion Tournament.

NV’s biggest strength has been their early game play, and a lot of that comes from the fact that LirA has only improved the longer he’s played in the LCS. With one of the highest first tower kill rates and gold leads from 10 through 20 minutes in the NA LCS, NV has no issues playing a hard and fast early game. The glaring problems for NV happen after the mid game, as they wrestle with awkward lane assignments and forcing haphazard team fights where their advantages slowly fade away into risky objective calls. Suddenly those early game gold leads fade into even-itemization team fights that they are not set up to win. One positive note for NV and their late game play was the emergence of their “protect Apollo” compositions, where drafting Marksmen such as Caitlyn or Ezreal with some form of shields or heals to keep Apollo alive until the late game has been proving effective for them.

Being proactive and quick from the get go is something that Challenger teams often struggle to deal with, let alone emulate. So while NV may have been one of the bottom teams in the NA LCS, their overall strengths as a team line up extremely well against some of the slower-to-start early games from both Gold Coin United and eUnited.

In conclusion, this may prove to be one of the most difficult Promotion Tournaments to date. With veteran LCS Squads going against talented Challenger teams, you won’t want to miss any of the action starting with NV vs GCU and TL vs EUN on Friday, March 31 at 3:00 PM PT. I’m predicting that anyone who picks Poppy will lose.

For more information about the tournament structure and bracket, check out the primer here.

Optimus Tom Searfoss is a shoutcaster and analyst for the NA Challenger Series. If you don't see him attached to the desk for NA CS or the uLoL Campus Series, you can find him buried deep in the numbers with the Esports Stats team during the NA LCS. Never MIA for too long, you can find him @OptimusTom on Twitter. He also hates Poppy.