Power Rankings #17 -- Team SoloMid

Team SoloMid Roster: Top: Dyrus Jungle: Santorin Mid: Bjergsen ADC: WildTurtle Support: Lustboy Just a few months ago, it looked like Team SoloMid had finally put themselves ahead of Cloud9, having defeated their first-place rival to take the NA LCS Summer Split title. Unfortunately for North American fans, both were dispatched 3-1 by each of the Samsung sister teams in the 2014 Worlds Quarterfinals. After the season, some of their problems from 2014 became apparent. Namely, jungler Maurice "Amazing" Stückenschneider never quite acclimated to North America, made worse by the rigors of the pro esports life. He decided to return to Europe and has since landed on Enrique Cedeño "xPeke" Martinez's start-up squad Origen. In response, TSM brought in Lucas "Santorin" Larsen, with the hope that the Challenger standout could help the team retain its seat atop the North America ladder. It's been a rough start. TSM competed at the Intel Extreme Masters at San Jose and were quickly routed by the newly promoted Unicorns of Love. Most shocking of all was how thoroughly TSM was dismantled at the hands of their counterparts -- Mateusz "Kikis" Szkudlarek, Tristan "PowerOfEvil" Schrage, and Tamás "Vizicsacsi" Kiss all contributed to defeat TSM handedly. From this showing, it looks as if Amazing's departure may have been more traumatic than originally thought. After all, it was Amazing who was voted as the second best jungler in Europe in the 2013 Spring Split. But in reality we can only press the panic switch so many times before we're brought back to reality. This is a team that has been to Worlds every season, is the reigning North American champions, and returns four of five starting players. Dyrus and Bjergsen still remain mechanical standouts and WildTurtle and Lustboy seem to be improving together. While there's still question marks surrounding the synergy of Santorin and his laning teammates, we suspect TSM will have some time to figure things out. But right now we don't feel comfortable rating them any higher. From what we have seen, TSM has taken a step backwards, and they will have to correct themselves to return to their throne atop North America. Who will be next on our Pre-Season Power Rankings? Check out the rest of the Power Rankings and stay tuned for more each day as we countdown to the start of the 2015 LCS Season.