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 Welcome to the 2018 Spring Season! If you haven't been keeping up since World's, a lot has changed. The pre-season patches this year has been one of the biggest updates that League of Legends has had in years, although keeping most of the same style champions in meta, the Runes/Masteries system has been entirely reworked bringing a brand new coat of paint to the 8 year old game. Beyond the in-game changes the biggest sweeping change this year comes to the North American LCS region, who have now franchised the entire region, with a majority of teams being now held by either major E-Sports organizations or NBA teams. The NA Challenger Series has now been replaced by an academy system held by the 10 active LCS teams as a "Farm league" for their main rosters, and every roster in the NA LCS this spring has 3-5 roster changes. The last big change to NA is the switch from a Best of 3 series back into a Best of 1 series which is quite controversial for many reasons. NA's sister region Europe have also adapted the Best of 1 format, although the EU region has yet to franchise the region (Rumors of franchising or breaking up the EU LCS into multiple, smaller regions are still strong!) Outside of the LCS, all other major regions retain their previous formats. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ What are the implications of the Spring Season? The top teams in all regions during the Spring Season will compete at the Mid-Season Invitational. The Mid Season Invitational (MSI) has moderate to major implications for Worlds in Season 8 (2018 Season) in that it determines which regions will obtain seeds in Pool 1 and which "Wildcard" region will obtain a secondary seed (The best performing region obtains two teams in Worlds 2018). Winning the Spring Season usually only means you will become your region's representative at the MSI, although all teams will receive circuit points towards Worlds 2018, it is generally the lowest stakes and when most teams will go through wide changes to see what works and what doesn't before prepping for Summer and World's. Who are the five major regions?
Who are the eight minor regions?
RealFoxy fucked around with this message at 08:56 on Dec 15, 2017 |
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| # ¿ Apr 23, 2024 21:22 |
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 Spring Season Start: Format: Best of 3 (Round Robin) Korea continues to be League of Legends most dominant region. In 2017 undefeated tournament titans SK Telecom T1 were finally dethroned at the World Championships by another previous winner, Samsung. While SK Telecom had shown many weaknesses coming into the finals, Samsung, who had retained their roster from the 2016 Championships showed almost no signs of weakness and easily stomped the 3-time World Champions, becoming 2-Time World Champions. The major story going into this Spring is the momentum of the KT Rolster Superteam, who crushed all opposition during the off-season KeSPA Cup and the vengeance of SKT's Faker who in his 5-year career has only failed to make World's once, and only lost a championship once. Many teams shuffled players around, and a couple players left for other regions but Korea hasn't suffered any major losses this year. Some significant players have returned to Korea and for the first time are making their major debuts in Korea (IgNar, Trick, and Rush namely) who had barely made a name for themselves before playing overseas. KSV E-Sports (Formally Samsung Galaxy) CuVee | Ambition / Haru* | Crown | Ruler | CoreJJ After becoming runners-up in 2016 and having a middling year in Spring and Summer, Samsung have managed to pull the biggest upset in LoL e-Sports history and dethrone three time champions SKT. The roster remains the same for three years in a row, but their sponsorship has changed hands as Samsung looked to get out of E-Sports and sold their organization to KSV E-Sports, a relative newcomer to the scene but have been making waves all the same by buying many of the top teams in multiple games. The roster is still spear-headed by Ambition, one of the longest tenured veterans in Korea and has solid anchors in every other role. Their play-style is a very controlled and methodical, although fairly flexible in that they have potential for any role to pop off and hard carry on their own. SK Telecom T1 Untara | Blank | Faker | Bang | Wolf For the first time, SKT have failed at winning a World Championship after making it into World's. A lot of the blame fell to both their All-Star Jungler Peanut, who had been picked up from their former rivals ROX Tigers in the beginning of 2017 and neutered when joining the organization, and SKT's bottom duo of Bang/Wolf. In a very bizarre off-season, SKT chose to let go of Huni who had through most of World's been SKT's second-best player, as well as Peanut and has chosen to focus on the two lesser-known players Untara and Blank in addition to keeping Bang & Wolf in their bottom lane. In addition, "The Right Hand of God" Bengi has re-joined the organization as assistant coach, while the legendary Kkoma has become the organizations' main coach. SKT's biggest strength has always been the ability to adapt on the fly, although it's been considerably weaker in the previous year. -- arguably due to clashing styles with their Top/Jungle and the demotivation of their ADC. Longzhu Gaming Khan / Rascal* | Peanut / Cuzz* | bdd | PraY | GorillA It's arguable that Longzhu Gaming were the second-best looking team at World's 2017, with so much raw, new talent in their top-half of the map along with the most solid bot-lane in Korea in Pray/Gorilla, but they were easily defeated by eventual champions Samsung. In the off-season, Longzhu retained their entire roster which was already fairly strong, but picked up an outstanding rookie in Rascal and re-united Peanut with former ROX Tigers team-members Pray/Gorilla. There should be very little adjustment time for Peanut in Longzhu Gaming and it's easy to predict the organization will be a top 3 team in the Spring season. Their playstyle is very explosive with any given member able to hard carry a game. KT Rolster Smeb / Ucal* | Score / Rush* | Pawn | Deft | Mata KT is still hailed as the Korean "Super-Team" and their off-season has been no different, signing one of the best solo queue players in the region UCaL, and Rush's return to competitive play, along with new coach SONSTAR. The roster on paper still looks like one of the strongest teams, but they've yet to prove they've got the synergy to really bring a championship home, always doing well but never making it to a World Championship. Their playstyle is extremely all-in, but will often fail to teams with better macro and are generally impatient. Afreeca Freecs Summit | Spirit / Mowgli* | | Kuro | Kramer | Tusin In 2017 Marin returned to the LCK promising to destroy the SKT organization and Faker, but in 2018 after failing to deliver his promise, Marin has returned to China leaving a band of misfits who had a lot to prove in the previous season without a leader. It's hard to predict that Afreeca will do as well this season without Marin, as Spirit and Kuro are seemingly winding down in their careers and leaving the team without a definitive carry Jin Air Greenwings SoHwan | UmTi | Justice / Yaharong | Teddy | Wraith Although Jin Air had the standout ADC of 2017 in Teddy, the organization still continues to fail to capture any major relevance that their Starcraft team has, leaving them in the middle of the pack. Jin Air is an odd organization that will regularly bounce between top 3 and bottom 3 within the same season, but there's no denying how powerful of a carry Teddy can be. The deciding factor in Jin Air's future will undoubtably be their new mid laners. MVP ADD | Beyond | Ian | MaHa | Max It's puzzling to see MVP's roster and their usual standings in Korea. They've got some of the stronger players in their roles, but can't seem to form a cohesive team that's able to regularly take out stronger teams. I would argue that almost anyone on the roster could be exceptional in a stronger organization but they seem to be more like EU's old Copenhagen Wolves who are breeding the region's strongest players stuck on one of the weakest teams. BBQ Olivers Crazy | Trick | Tempt | Ghost | IgNar Probably the most exciting all-new roster in Korea, the organization is bringing in EU's top imports Trick and IgNar who have both performed at the very top of the region in the previous years. I can't expect them to be at the very top of the region, but at worst they'll probably be taking the odd series off top teams every once in a while with their very aggressive and unusual picks. Kongdoo Monsters Roach | U Jun | Edge / Han* | Ssol | Secret Kongdoo Monsters, the previous Naijin organization continue their fall from grace without a single standout player on their roster this season. While most rosters include at least one player to watch, Kongdoo Monsters is the equivalent to that challenger team full of edge players that are too good to compete in the challenger series but not good enough to compete in the main league. ROX Tigers Lindarang | Mightybear / SeongHwan* | Crow / Lava* | Sangyoon | Key ROX Tigers are another team losing the off-season, picking up more unproven rookies with barely recognizable players held down with Key, who was part of the one-time roster ESC Ever who for a very short window looked like one of the most exciting rookie teams in Korea.  Format: Best of 1 North America is generally the most popular region to watch on the forums, but they continue the tradition of very shaky World's results. The biggest change since last season is that the region has now been franchised, giving teams a more "stable" environment to pursue sponsors and introduces revenue sharing for all current teams. During the off-season, teams had to submit applications into the league showing Riot what made them stand out as an organization and what they would offer. At the end, Phoenix1, Dignitas, APEX, and Immortals were all denied re-entry into the LCS and replaced with NBA teams 100 Thieves (Cleveland Cavaliers), Clutch Gaming (Houston Rockets), and Golden Guardians (Golden State Warriors) as well as E-Sport titans Optic Gaming. In addition to the LCS, the challenger series has been reformatted and includes only "Academy" teams form the ten main LCS teams. Almost every single team in the region has gone through major roster changes, replacing an average of 3 players on the returning major teams, many of which feature completely new rosters altogether. Team Solo Mid Hauntzer | MikeYeung | Bjergsen | Zven | Mithy TSM are undoubtably the most popular team in NA and are almost always in contention to win the NA LCS title every season. After a very disappointing World Championship run, TSM have replaced Sven, Doublelift, and Biofrost with Rookie of the Split MikeYeung from P1, and one of the famous and consistent bot lanes from Europe in addition to coaches Ssumday and Lustboy. Cloud9 Licorice | Svenskeren | Jensen | Sneaky | Smoothie In a somewhat puzzling move, Cloud9 have let two of their most solid players go in the off-season after being the most successful team at the World Championships and picked up an outstanding young rookie in their top lane, and a very middling jungler from TSM. You could argue that Bjergsen's playstyle is what held Sven back in TSM but it's hard to say he's going to come to C9 and flourish with a midlaner that plays almost an identical style that demands a lot of jungle pressure. Counter Logic Gaming Darshan | Reignover | Huhi | Stixxay | Biofrost If I could describe CLG's roster in one word, it would only be "solid". They probably won't set the world on fire and don't have any players that will seem to go above and beyond other teams, but none of their players are likely to have breakdowns mid-match either. They're all-around above the average, but it's hard to find anything exciting about the roster. Because of this though, you can probably expect them to win a lot more than they lose. Team Liquid Impact | Xmithie | Pobelter | Doublelift | Olleh The Liquid has been completely redone thanks to Liquid Steve buying the contracts of something like 15 players and selling them off intermittently until he settled on this. The roster itself looks like it has the potential of the previous Immortals roster, but like that roster before them, they're all about potential. All five players look to be the top 3 in their roles, but the big difference maker here is going to be how their playstyles mold together and how quickly they can adapt to playing with teams who have been playing together longer, like TSM or CLG. FlyQuest Flame | AnDA | Fly | Wildturtle | Stunt In years past, FlyQuest would have been full of challenger players that were just filling out a roster to keep their slot in the LCS, but with all the shake-ups in the off-season they've managed to get themselves a decent looking roster. It's hard to say how this roster will play out, since Flame and Wildturtle both have a habit of playing forward, while Fly is a fairly reserved midlaner Echo Fox (AKA Breaking Point 2.0) Huni | Dardoch | Fenix | Altec | Adrian Rick Fox must have lost his mind in the off-season, signing five players all very prone to being heavily tilted, most notably Dardoch and Fenix who had already exploded on Liquid just recently. Although most players on the team are very skilled individually, Rick Fox may just bankrupt himself paying psychologists to get this team on the same page. 100 Thieves Ssumday | Meteos | Ryu | Cody Sun | Aphromoo This team is a mis-match of P1 and Immortals that look like they could either make top 4 or bottom 4. The team has some of the most recognizable players in the scene but it's hard to say if Meteos, Ryu, or Aphromoo still have enough left in the tank to carry a team all the way to the finals. I'm still fairly excited to see how this team plays out, especially because they have some of the better looking merch out of the new organizations  Clutch Gaming Solo | LirA | Febiven | Apollo | Hakuho This is it everyone, this is your most boring roster in NA. Other than Solo I can't really call any of the players BAD, but outside of their comfort zones they're probably mediocre at best. Apollo/Hakuho are a very solid bot lane who rarely feed, but rarely pop off, Febiven is definitely the opposite who will either feed or famine, and LirA is probably one of the better junglers in the region and we've seen what he can work with using a worse roster, but he hardly had an ego like Febiven on his roster before either. Golden Guardians Lourlo | Contractz | Hai | Deftly | Matt Hai is once again trying to prove he can take a group of rag-tag players and make it into playoffs. This time, although he has three other veterens including Contractz who may be one of the better junglers in the region, he's dragging along Matt and Lourlo from Liquid and a total rookie in Deftly. Can Hai out-smart his competition or will his mechanics and wrist deteriorated too far at this point? OpTic Gaming (TBD) | Akaadian | PowerOfEvil | Arrow | (TBD) RealFoxy fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Dec 18, 2017 |
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Aug 16, 2017 07:57
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njsykora posted:EU > NA
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Aug 16, 2017 09:20
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By the way there's probably a good chance that Gambit Gaming featuring Edward and Diamondprox + PVPStejos & Kira from Albus Nox Luna are gonna make it to World's so that's prob the EU team you wanna root for
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Aug 16, 2017 11:38
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Taciturn Tactician posted:What team are you even talking about
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Aug 16, 2017 11:48
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Shadow225 posted:I'm still sad about Phoenix 1. I'd love to know why they fell apart so hard, There actually was no point to the promotion tournament, I think Riot had originally said that there would be a $3 Million discount to all teams currently in LCS then said that there was no discount anymore (Or technically that everyone got the discount anyway) so all I can figure is that current LCS teams might just get priority over outside organizations?
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Aug 16, 2017 16:14
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Libertine posted:Closed out the old thread, new thread looks great. I'll probably watch Worlds this year but even reading about the format I don't really understand it. Are they just inviting a ton of wild cards to mash up in the first group stage to try and compete for seeds instead of the old 8-team wild card battle? It's also a fun poo poo-show before the main stuff starts because the Wildcard tournaments are almost always fun to watch and you can see how they stack up against China, EU, NA, and LMS. Last year the Wildcard regions did much better than some of the major regions so giving them a better chance to play-in is awesome
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Aug 16, 2017 17:15
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Libertine posted:I'm already all in for the Gambit/Albus Nox Luna team without even reading about any of the others. Huni/Peanut used to being the all-stars on their previous teams and given the option of hard-carrying versus playing more supportive roles on SKT Bang tilting and practicing a lot less then having to deal with Korean Reddit trolling him over something he had said like 5 months prior The general meta just not being good for SKT throughout most of summer Other teams throughout the summer split just being legitimately better than SKT at the time, or at least good enough to take a set off SKT. Seriously though, the summer season was stacked as far as talent goes. Bottom tier teams had standouts that could take control of the game if given an inch like Jin Air's Teddy or Ever8's Malrang/Cepted But yeah, SKT was also probably doing the thing they do sometimes where they take things a little less seriously than they should until it's World's Season and then flip the switch and just dismantle everyone. I don't know if any team in the world practices harder or more efficiently than SKT does when they're getting ready to go to World's. Speaking of, SKT vs KT Rolster will determine the next team to qualify for World's via Korea's second seed (Circuit Points) although it's still entirely possible that one or the other won't qualify for World's still. Whichever team loses will have to win the Gauntlet coming up which is a strange situation for Longzhu because despite winning first place in the regular season there's still a REALLY good chance they don't make it to World's.
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Aug 16, 2017 17:58
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kirtar posted:The only part that is necessarily true in this statement is that the winning team will be qualified for Worlds with a guaranteed minimum of the 2nd LCK seed. The losing team in the semifinal will still qualify as second seed if LGD loses in the finals since LGD is sitting on 0 circuit points. If SK Telecom beat KT and Longzhu, then SKT will get First seed, KT will get second seed based on Circuit Points, and Longzhu will have to win the Gauntlet against Samsung, Afreeca, and MVP
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Aug 16, 2017 18:42
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your friend a dog posted:how do people get 'past their prime' in league, a game that only uses your wrist, which should last you EASILY into the thirties if you're keeping up the vitamin enhanced dew, and your brain which, although ranked has led me to believe otherwise, does not lose its folds as you hit your late twenties
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Aug 17, 2017 09:47
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ArbitraryC posted:I have pretty much never in the history of this site actually used bookmarks, I guess that's my own problem but I do appreciate the OP for changing the tag.
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Aug 17, 2017 18:37
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The EU LCS All-Pro Team has been released Top: SoaZ (FNC) Jun: Broxah (FNC) Mid: Febiven (H2K) ADC: Rekkles (FNC) Sup: Mithy (G2) Both Jessiz and especially Chei were much more impressive than Mithy imo
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Aug 18, 2017 14:38
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The last two spots to qualify for LPL playoffs will be determined this week with both fourth seeds from both groups are either tied or neck and neck with another team and coincidentally playing against one another this week  DAN/Snake Gaming to determine Group A's playoffs (With iG, World Elite, and Edward Gaming) JD/SN Gaming to determine Group B's playoffs (With NewBee, OMG, and Royal)
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Aug 18, 2017 19:42
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I just woke up and I see that KT are about to get reverse swept. Ah, this is the KT I know.
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Aug 19, 2017 11:34
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RealFoxy posted:Never bet on KT
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Aug 19, 2017 13:26
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Killed By Death posted:BTW, as of 40 minutes ago the 3rd team to qualify for the World Championship has been decided - 1907 Fenerbahçe from Turkey. Thaldrin/Move/Frozen/padden/JAPONE e: I will never forget that IgNar was supposed to be the support for Winterfox but refused to leave Korea because he knew Helios's brother Avalon was boosted as gently caress (He was right) RealFoxy fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Aug 19, 2017 |
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Aug 19, 2017 17:35
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Crazy Larry posted:I think this Lucian by PoE is the best mid Lucian I've seen.
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Aug 19, 2017 17:43
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Vermain posted:2/6/1 Kassadin is just laughworthy in a professional match. How the gently caress does that even happen?
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Aug 19, 2017 17:48
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Ulio posted:Powerofevil was pretty good today in EU LCS playoffs.
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Aug 19, 2017 23:05
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Vermain posted:i loving hate the millionaire janna build so much
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Aug 19, 2017 23:24
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I saw a "medical request" and then a bunch of DIG players running off like the building was on fire I'm so confused
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Aug 19, 2017 23:35
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what the christ sneaky
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Aug 19, 2017 23:44
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el dingo posted:What in the gently caress just happened
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Aug 19, 2017 23:45
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henkman posted:WOW ABSOLUTE MVP PERFORMANCE on tristana because he got a double kill after his frontline and Jensen got them down to 100 hp
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Aug 19, 2017 23:47
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 Fiesta time lads
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Aug 19, 2017 23:55
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The Redemption snipe is always going to be my play of the game
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Aug 20, 2017 00:01
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I'm still crying as 3 members of DIG walk PAST Sneaky, one whiffs his rotation, and Sneaky dies to redemption
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Aug 20, 2017 00:03
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I am Ssumday's last item sheen
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Aug 20, 2017 00:09
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TSM is the fifth team to qualify for World's and I'll update the OP again when the next one qualifies which is I think another Wildcard region tonight Meanwhile China is still in their regular season, get your poo poo together fam.
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Aug 20, 2017 00:19
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Vermain posted:It's still genuinely unreal to say that Dignitas has the cleanest Baron plays in the entire Western LCS, and, to be frank, are probably in the running for some of the cleanest Barons internationally. They always seem to know exactly when they can use it to force an engage, when to disengage, when to turn, etc. It's really impressive to watch.
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Aug 20, 2017 00:38
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  Fun fact: I'm using a macbook and my subscription to Adobe ran out so I take a screenshot on another forum that has a nice color I like then edit the text using a simple online image editor
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Aug 20, 2017 13:49
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Savage Cracker posted:2017 has mostly been poo poo from an EU point of view so we'll take what we can get: Holding NA LCS viewers hostage 
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Aug 20, 2017 20:40
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I really don't want Splyce to win but I don't even know if G2 deserves to make it to World's either
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Aug 20, 2017 21:37
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NV manages to have one of the best players in the region and one of the worst players in the region on their roster at the same time.
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Aug 20, 2017 21:52
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What's Zac's winrate when left open? It's got to be over 75%
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Aug 20, 2017 22:02
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They traded away Xmithie for Dardoch because every team thinks they can control his toxicity then finds out they can't. If Dardoch could control his attitude, he probably would be the best jungler in NA but welp
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Aug 20, 2017 23:37
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Savage Cracker posted:Oh right I had somehow completely forgotten the Dardock bonanza 2k17 edition
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Aug 21, 2017 00:18
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It's so amusing to me that Seraph can just walk up to towers and literally ignore Darshan and yet NV are struggling to do anything else with their 7k gold lead
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Aug 21, 2017 00:32
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Jesus gently caress was that a Corki rocket crit that just did like 400 damage?
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Aug 21, 2017 00:34
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tbh if you lose to NV in the playoffs you should be sent to the relegation tournament with Liquid and Phoenix1
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Aug 21, 2017 00:38
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