NALCS Spring Reg Season Recap
The NA LCS spring regular season has wrapped up and wow did it feel like a roller coaster of emotions and expectations along the way. When you have 8 placements yet to be decided on the final day, it truly screamed to how competitive the split actually was. Most may see that as a hindrance as even the clear cut favorites did not look like such. But normally those have been the people that will take a domestic competition and compare it to another especially on the macro sense. I'm not going to lie: I'm one for close and relatively equal competition. That's what I got with North America compared to any other major region. It wasn't often I was able to look at a match and say "Well this team wins outright." There was always something to look forward to.
Anyway, throughout the spring split I did my own thing where I would rank and score each team based off of the performance on the given week. Think of it as a Mario Kart Grand Prix: the teams would start with a certain placement in mind, they would get points on the week based on how they would perform, a soft mental reset to prevent any weighted biases I may have produced, and the process would repeat. The scoring was simple: 12 Points to who I believed was the best performing/improving team on the week, 10 for 2nd, 8 for 3rd, and 6-0 for the rest; once again, like Mario Kart. I will do my best not to throw names: this is literally just on the teams. The results wound up looking something like this:
1st: Cloud 9 (76 Points): Despite the hiccups in their play during the middle of the regular season, I still believe C9 to be the best performing team on the split. Their strong start to the split compared to the rest of the teams gave them a huge boon. In reality though, the best expectations you can draw from a team often come from their most recent play. The beginning was likely the best C9 we'll get and should they not draw from that power for playoffs, chances their MSI expectations may be less than trustworthy following the play-in round.
2nd: Team SoloMid (68 Points): Pretty much second place on my standings the entire split after FlyQuest took a dip and C9's strong start. One thing I can say about TSM though: they are freaking consistent on at least a positive trajectory. The problem I had with this however was from the sheer losses where on a power spectrum shouldn't have happened. Securing 1st place is impressive and they do once again show they are a threat going into playoffs. But like C9, they really need to draw from a decisive period in time to get fans truly believing in them.
3rd: Phoenix 1 (59 Points): It's no lie that P1 is the definitive 3rd best team on the split. Even before coming into Week 9, they were 3rd and would keep 3rd no matter what; they only way they could have gone was up but that would have taken both C9 and TSM meltdowns. P1 matched C9 on 1st place performances on the week (with 3) and were all during the C9 downloaded phase. I am however questioning P1 going into playoffs as they have shown there is weakness in their play depending on which players they field.
4th: FlyQuest (49 Points): Now this is where things get interesting. 4th through 8th could have had almost any variety of results coming into Week 9. FlyQuest however came out on top and thus locked in that spot. Like C9, they had a strong start compared to the scattered performances of other teams early in the split. And even with worse mid split performances, at least this team ended on a trusting note etching into playoffs by the skin of their teeth. Personally, I do not think this is a worthy MSI representing team as much as I did mid split. But we'll just have to see.
5th: Team Dignitas (46 Points): The process to climb out of the bottom of the standings was beyond real! For once in quite a while, DIG has impressed me in the second half of a split...or at least the last 3 weeks after tanking the bottom performing half week after week following the start. I think the skies the limit with this team. There's clearly identity forming among the team's overall synergy. However, that may not be enough if their decision making remains the same as it has been.
6th: Immortals (40 Points): I believed in a little bit of the perception that IMT was going to fall...hard. They did squeak together quite a few good performing weeks however where others looked less than efficient. I wasn't intending to use names in this post but this is a case where I have to say this team truly lived and died by Dardoch. And like DIG, their identity really came together as the split went on. It's unfortunate that they couldn't reach the playoffs though.
7th: Counter Logic Gaming (39 Points): The true definition of bipolarity that is CLG. One moment they can look like the best team on the split underneath TSM. The next they look less mechanically and/or macro sound than Echo Fox. It's a bit unfortunate though that they were 4th on my standings coming into Week 9 and dropped 3 placements from just one rough week. I wish I could forgive that but I really could not do that for them. Previous splits I may have. They do have the playoff run now. I'll believe in them, but I won't make any predictions until after and if they prevail over FLY.
8th: Echo Fox (36 Points): Don't let their recent performance fool you nor make you forget the "even week Echo Fox" run they were surging with early in the split. That's where their points came from! Honestly, I'm on the side where I do believe they deserved better than promotion tournament. But this may be a one time feeling of forgiveness for the team. They can potentially improve, but I don't think they really will unless another team above them collapses in the summer, where Worlds intent is much more severe.
9th: Team Envy (25 Points): This was depressing. Aside from TSM, this team probably had the best consistency on the split...in the wrong direction. If they were able to close out the games they had leads in, we'd really be talking a contender in the playoff picture rather than a team that were monsters in the early game but miserable in the late game. Where does this team go from here is my big question after promotion. I liked their formula of a strong jungler and a steady duo lane. They just need the rest of the pieces to desperately fall into place.
10th: Team Liquid (21 Points): The most last place performances on the week and a team that literally never reached the top 3 on any given week. I don't think anyone can really disagree with that through all of the finger pointing, faults, etc. I used to be a Curse fan. This does kind of hurt to see. But their recent changes do give me enough hope that they'll be able to take on the promotion tournament and survive. But if their emotions get the best of them like they did the entire split, this may be the end.
And that's my final ranking on the regular season. I liked doing it again after quite some time and it really took some dedication to get done as fair as possible.
