Meet the New Jungler for Echo Fox...
...........................................................................Dardoch! Look it up!
14 Comments
Looks good on paper for Echo Fox with Froggen and Dardoch but it's going to be the same story as it was with Team Liquid as far as gameplay goes.
Team Liquid super passive team that does nothing for 40+ Mins, a mid laner that use to be aggressive and made plays with Fenix but each split has turned more and more passive in his play and only farms.
Echo Fox super passive team that does nothing for 40+ Mins, a mid laner Froggen that doesn't do anything but farms for year gets caught and dies.
WIth Dardoch on Echo Fox Froggen really needs to play aggressive and no worry about getting 700 cs per game with a game ending score of 0-1-0-700 or it will be another 0-50 split for Echo Fox.
See, for me I'd much rather see a full-scrap of the team. While they did show promise in the second half of spring (when teams like dig/"ren"/tip were more or less feeding wins off), this team right now clearly lacks any sort of pressure. With all the free agents available, they could theoretically rebuild their entire roster (excluding froggen, as rick fox clearly wants him there) and take advantage of what is sure to be an extremely advantageous open market right now. If I were them, my roster for 2017 would look something like this, assuming C9 sells their LCS spot and doesn't "double down" in challenger again:
Top: Quas/Solo/Balls JG: Dardoch Mid: Froggen ADC: Fabbyy/Altec Sup: Hybrid/Bunny
Also, I'm incredibly interested to see what happens to TL after this. Losing one decent player can often be recoverable (c9 did it with rush), losing two can often be incredibly detrimental (OG going from 2nd to 9th). If we're going to be realistic, their only options right now for replacing their JG consist of one of the C-tier free agents (Moon, Hard assuming they do get rid of him, Santorin), bringing back Dom (which I personally think is incredibly unlikely), or attempting to steal Contractz off C9 (which again, I see as being heavily unlikely). ADC is also something that they might replace, with Jynthe having the series vs NV to show how good he is (Piglet always an option for replacing him in the off-season if he doesn't immediately light things up).
On one hand I would criticize Dardoch for a leaving a team that still had a chance to go to worlds. Even if the likelihood of doing well at worlds was slim, it would've been a worthwhile experience and definitely something worth fighting for. On the other hand, Liquid/Curse has a history of having the douchebagiest management. Wishywashy Steve treats his troops like they are as replaceable as the soggy broccoli in your instant dinner. So what does this mean for Liquid's chances of claiming fourth in the race for worlds (which is exactly what the curse has always been) now that they have a completely subpar roster. I think they could still beat NV on the strength of their champion select and Pheonix. But to beat c9 after they've shown themselves to be super strong? Wow, that would be an upset of epic proportions. But don't count them out just yet. With nerfs to both Reksai and Gragas coming down the line, Meteos will probably bring out his infamous Elise and start missing cocoons left and right. Any champ with a skill shot will ruin Meteos and the team will tilt forward. The curse should hold true, with IMT taking down liquid. Perhaps Dardoch threatened the curse enough to have the cosmos call on his trade.
And going further, I have to say, I like echo fox with Dardoch. I want McBrief to succeed so bad after he was dismissed from liquid after posting great performances. Hard was probably the worst player in the LCS last split, and to replace your greatest weakness with arguably one of the strongest player in the NA LCS will go a long ways. Still have my doubts about Froggen, the guy hasn't exactly carried like he has in the past, but with a decent lineup he might have the motivation to take his game a step forward.
Props to Dardoch for getting out of a nasty situation. Props to Fox (always hated your goonery in the NBA) and your team for picking up a quality player. Here's hoping you can manage your team well enough to actually threaten for world's next year.