EPT
I thought I'd put it up before it became completely irrelevant.
For MVP, Proleague 2014 was a disaster. A miraculous run in the Round 2 playoffs, including an all-kill of KT Rolster by Billowy, was followed by a swift regression to the mean. 3 quick wins for Maru paved the way for an easy Jin Air victory in the final, while bottom place finishes below Prime in the following 2 rounds confirmed their 7th place overall finish.
Major changes were needed. And yet no one would quite predict what followed; an entire reshuffling of their roster. Their whole lineup, from team icon KeeN to ex-GSL champion Sniper was gone in a flash. Even DongRaeGu, once the pride of MVP, decided to leave upon the expiry of his contract. In an interview after advancing to the Code S Season 3 Round of 16, he said “I was just exhausted … It felt like there was just no progress going on with everyone, even me included. I felt that I needed to change my situation”. It seemed that the team’s situation was much the same.
Signings poured in; Salvation and Departure along with Head Coach Choya from Prime; YongHwa and Losira from the deceased IM squad. Center was picked up as a free agent, while Seed, Leenock and HerO announced that they would play for MVP in Proleague. Most notably of all, for name recognition if not for recent results, MarineKing was tempted into the fold by his ex-coach, just days after stating that he wanted to pursue foreign opportunities. Yet while the roster was populated again, the quality of the additions was questioned.
After all, despite the undeniable pedigree of Leenock and HerO, the former lives in Taiwan, and thus managed to play only a single game for Prime in 2014. 3 of the 4 recruits to the squad with experience in Proleague 2014 came from the only team to finish below MVP, with all 4 recording win rates lower than 50%. And while you could argue that MarineKing (10-13) showed some flashes of his old combination of greed and micro on occasion following his return from League of Legends, and that Salvation (2-6) showed some excellent TvT ability against Cure in Round 4, the same can’t really be said of YongHwa (3-10) and DeParture (0-7).
However, 4 months on from the roster changes, the results tell a different story. The MVP roster has quietly racked up an impressive set of wins in the emergent Korean online scene, combining for five Leifeng cups and three Olimoleague championships, two of them being the more stacked monthly tournaments. Losira announced his return on the international stage at HomeStory Cup X, crushing TY in the quarter finals on his way to an impressive Ro. 4 finish. In the BaseTradeTV 32 Boys 1 Cup, Departure trucked his way through PartinG, Stork, FanTaSy, Symbol, Rain and perennial LR favourite TANGTANG before finally falling to Solar. Finally MarineKing followed up two second place finishes in Olimoleague with his near perfect run to the finals in the recent Hot6ix Cup, before inexplicably challenging sOs’s willingness to cheese.
This is a roster on the rise. From 29 December 2013 (the start of Proleague 2014) to 31 July 2014 (the date of the first additions to the new MVP roster), Center had a record of 40-47. Since then, it is 196-147, a rise of 11%. Similarly, MarineKing – 9%. YongHwa – 5%. DeParture – 10%. Losira – 6%. Ignoring Panic and SalvatioN, who haven’t played enough games to have a reliable sample size, everyone is playing better; and the improvement is only more apparent when you consider more recent results.
Looking at the lineups at the start of the 2015 season, MVP’s position is very much comparable to CJ Entus’s from 2014; a case of as-yet unrealized potential. Will they soar like herO? Or will they fade like Sora?
Will MarineKing learn to survive the early game? Will Losira return to the same standards which gave us one of the greatest series of all time? Will the relative youngsters kick on?
The signs are encouraging. Whether it’s down to the increased regularity of online competitions in Korea; the simple accumulation of experience for a relatively young set of players, or if Choya really is the miracle worker some are claiming, it’s clear that something special might be happening at MVP.
Credit all statistics to Aligulac.
