EPT1. SK Gaming
S4 SK lacked talent. At first they were wrote off as a bunch of mediocre/bad players who simply cheated by using ROTATIONS, a method considered dishonest in Spring Split EU LCS. As we got closer to Worlds, people realised that Fredy and Svenskeren were both top3 in the region. However, they also had Jesiz and Candypanda. Jesiz looked ok against NA challenger players, but people don't expect much of him coming into LCS. CandyPanda had a resurgance in Spring, considered the only good player on the team by many, but by Summer he only really performed on Vayne. Their replacements looked very promising in the past, Fox against EU challengers and FORG1VEN against actual LCS competition (in arguably the most adc-talent stacked split in EU history). Meanwhile nRated is widely considered to be kept on the team as shotcaller and strategist, while his actual in-game skills were average at best, having to resort to unconventional picks like Kayle and Sona when he couldn't play Morgana. However, similarly to how Xpecial seemed to make his AD Carries look better than when they played with anyone else, Unlimited looked like a much better player while with Forgiven than with any other AD Carry, and it's not like Rekkles and Woolite (his other lane partners) were bad players. So that makes me hopeful that Forgiven can work with nRated to create a lane that will be able to compete with likes of Rekkles/Nyph and Woolite/Vander.
Seemingly, S5 SK has the whole package - shotcalling, strategies, coaching staff (re-signing their sports psychologist) and talent. Of course it is an experiment - Fox can turn out to be an overrated player and Forgiven can blow up in team's face in more than one way. Perhaps Fredy's and Svenskeren's level has significantly drop during the break. But if you ask me who I think the best European team will be in 2015, I respond "SK Gaming".
2. Elements
ex-Alliance is one unpredictable squad. In Spring they were a team that heavily relied on getting ahead early and figuring out how to close it out. In summer they seemed to clean their act and focused on winning in mid-late game, resembling CLG.EU a tiniest bit (especially when Froggen would try to just farm 6 items and win the game alone). It mostly seemed to work, with Alliance winning the EU LCS playoffs. However, after the Korean Bootcamp, a more coinflippy Alliance returned, having a great game against NJWS and then losing to Kabum in an embarrassing fashion. With the new season, they claim they are gonna focus on more aggressive play (but then that's what every EU team said ever, and people still call that region boring despite the statistics).
Anyway, Elements has an interesting bunch of players. Shook is regarded as an inconsistent genius - while I would argue that his impressive games rely just as much on him as on circumstances of that game, it's true that his form fluctuates from a top3 jungler in europe to a bottom one. This was originally attributed to his alleged LAN jitters, but I would argue he just hasn't outgrown that early Alliance style of being very good at snowballing games, but failing at coming back from a disadvantage unless an opportunity presents itself (which is to say, bad at creating opportunities when behind). Then there's Wickd, who just seems to be really good at playing certain champions and clueless on others, making questionable moves and even item builds. Overall hard to rank him, but definitely adds to the incosistency of the team. Finally, Froggen, who evolved his style a lot over the past year, but probably will always perform better on farming mages than roaming assassins - which isn't to say he's bad at the latter, but I'd imagine some other LCS midlaners could outperform him on that.
Rekkles tends to be considered overrated by more insightful league critics, who point out to his low damage output, especially compared to likes of Deft. I think it's worth mentioning that Fnatic was a much different team than Samsung Blue - where Acorn, Spirit and Heart would try to set the teamfight in a way that will allow Deft to safely output damage, xPeke, Soaz and Yellowstar would usually try to initiate on as many opponnents as possible, leaving Rekkles to survive on his own - which is what he excelled at, dancing just outside of enemy reach and sneaking in autoattacks whenever possible. Perhaps there were teamfights where Fnatic would benefit from him throwing himself in the frontline and forcing enemy team to react in a way beneficial for his teammates, but overall I think he played in a style that complimented his team. Finally, he gives Elements the much-needed consistency, that will perhaps help them avoid losses like the one against Kabum.
Overall with how EU is looking right now, Shook and Wickd should be ok even on their worse days. However, I'm giving SK an edge over them, as I think they are more complete as a team. Perhaps Elements is a better team on their best day, but unless that day is the final of LCS playoffs, I don't expect them to outperform the Alliance of S4 by a large margin.
3. ROCCAT
I'm probably the least hyped person for the new ROCCAT roster, and there are few reasons for that. First of all - I'm actually willing to judge a team based on their IEM performance. Yes, ROCCAT showed up with willtoliveless Ryu, Overpow is still transitioning to a new role and Woolite is building his synergy with Vander. However, the team that showed at IEM was completely aimless. Maybe Jankos didn't look like a shitter, but neither like the #1 European jungler people claim he is. Vander had more of an average run and Woolite just didn't impress at all.
I think a lot of original Roccat success came from good drafting and executing their comps properly rather than great laning or teamfighting. Now, Overpow will likely be a good replacement for Xaxus, considering people remember Xaxus mostly for being one of the first to introduce new picks )such as Alistar and Maokai) and Overpow shined mostly at being able to play multitude of champions at around the same level. I also consider IEM a fluke for Jankos and Vander. But I'm not very hopeful for their new pickups. First of all, I don't buy Woolite's hype at all. I think he failed to provide Copenhagen Wolves with same caliber of AD carrying as Rekkles and Forgiven, which are exact two players he's gonna compete against for the top spots in league. Second of all, nukeduck's career post-Lemondogs so far has kept me convinced, that dexter HAS in fact made him look good. Sure, he excells at roaming, capitalizing on ganks and splitpushing, but I think he's a very one-dimensional player and Roccat will suffer if enemy teams ban him out or prevent his snowball. Also, let's not forget that nukeduck wanted to play with Hyrqbot because he assumed he will camp mid even more than dexter, who himself liked ganking top from time to time. Jankos likes being a freestyle jungler who goes wherever he smells blood, so unless either of them changes their style, I can see disagreements in clutch situations that lead to a downward spiral.
I think they have enough talent and composure to beat lesser teams, but barring a perfect synergy between Jankos and nukeduck (and meta that benefits them), I don't expect them to break top2.
4. Meet your Makers
Over Season 4, SHC grew from a mix of OK players to a team that some even expected to go to Worlds. Spring split was all about MrRallez breaking out as another ADC talent and dragging his team to victory, while Summer saw a lot of improvement in the team with arrival of Selfie and lastshadow lastshadow lastshadow's coaching. While I'm not as optimistic about their chances to become a toptier team as some, I think they are at least good enough to be a gatekeeper - Mimer is pretty ok nowadays (as opposed to being EU Westrice in spring) and Selfie and Rallez will surely do the job. Of course Horo and Nisbeth are big unknowns, but Rallez was never really paired with a start support and still managed to do the job. Meanwhile Impaler would do great in 1 out of 10 games while being just sort of there in the other 9. H0ro's initial showing in Europe wasn't that great and being T1S jungler isn't necesarily the greatest legacy, but I think he has enough training and experience under his belt to be able to play well once he's accustomed to new environment.
5. Copenhagen Wolves
As some LR posters might recall, I always had a soft spot for Copenhagen Wolves. While they were as bad at closing out games as everyone, I think they had some of the best early game strats in Europe and they were always able to recognise their stars and provide them with whatever they needed to carry. Going back to spring, people tend to remember their slow games in regular split and weak performance in playoffs, but I remember them being convincingly ahead of Millenium and barely behind Gambit and Roccat in regular season, as well as their close performance against Gambit and Alliance in playoffs. Summer was much worse, which was to be expected considering they lost their two best players and found no luck in searching for their replacements. However, by the end of 2014 they finally replaced Cowtard - and notBjergsen is showing a lot more promise. Airwaks seems to be a much better player after one split and I personally have higher expectations for Freeze than I had for Woolite. It's not that they improved a ton, but they got their shit together by the end of the year, convincingly winning their relegation match against H2K. Now that Fnatic effectively disbanded, 5th place isn't even a great placement, despite meaning you're better than half of the league. I just think quite lowly of the lower half.
6. Gambit Gaming
Ooooooh booooy. So I claim that I take IEM seriously, but I put it's winner 3 spots below the team that lost to CLG?
First of all, it was great to see Diamond that tournament, he looked revitalised. P1noy, Niq and Cabochard all played well and Edward shown some engages worthy of M5. However, it was IEM. Maybe it's Groove's motivational speaches, maybe it's Diamond's ability to prepare for a tournament, or maybe they somehow managed to rebuild the original M5 spirit with new players, but I think they won't be able to reproduce their tournament play in round robin. A lot of it has to do with constant travelling of Diamond and Edward, which will also impact how much practice the rest of the team can get. But let's also not forget that P1noy didn't impress up until IEM and Cabochard had mixed results in the past.
Now, I think the S5 jungle will be much better for Diamond, with different champions filling different roles and smite buffs allowing new creative ways of farming and counterjungling. While Diamond's general game sense and ganks were good by S2 standards, nowadays he tends to rely a lot more on unconventional champions and outfarming his opponent. He didn't really get to do in S4, since the jungle was most suited for well-rounded, all-purpose junglers like Elise, Lee Sin and Kha'Zix, with Rengar being pretty much the only interesting exception. However, while I think the meta is much better for him now, I also think that he's past his prime and don't expect him to outperform likes of Svenskeren and Jankos.
Overall LCS format is the biggest Gambit's opponent. While I think SK and ALL are still better teams even in tournament format, I could imagine Gambit being the 3rd best EU team if we were still in S2-style tournament circuit. As it is, I don't expect greatness.
7. Unicorns of Love
UoL are your typical challenger team that qualified for LCS - they have talent in some positions, baddies in other and don't impress in terms of strategy. Their strenght definitely lies in sololaners - PoE was kicking ass in challenger for quite some time and Vizics is one of the most promising toplaners to come out of european soloq in a very long time, showing proficiency in both traditional and unconventional picks. However, Kikis so far looks like a few-tricks pony and it seems like it's just a matter of time until he runs out of tricks. Vardags is often a huge burden for the team - Hylissang usually does a good job of carrying it, but one has to wonder if he can save the lane against best LCS duos. They definitely have potential to suprise and take higher spots, but I would probably expect more from them in Summer, once they got some experience down and perhaps replaced some players.
8. H2K Gaming
I don't have big expectations for H2K. They are a huge online team, pretty much always looking worse when it comes to offline play. Of course LCS is a good way to overcome that, but there's also the fact that they lost their huge carry in Febiven, and his rumoured replacement Ryu didn't look very promising ever since coming to Europe. It's also worth mentioning that H2K were top of the challenger scene since forever but only got into LCS thanks to the expansion tournament, perhaps hinting a gap between established LCS veterans and challenger newcomers. Anyway, now that Febiven's gone, I find it very hard to expect anything from H2K.
9. fnatic
I have no faith in unproven Korean imports and I have no faith in Steelback. Yellowstar's great, so perhaps he can bring out greatness in Steelback, but his time on SK Prime really wasn't promising. Maybe Koreans turn out to be the one-in-milion that thrives in a weaker region. Maybe Febiven doesn't lose his will to live. But I'm expecting quite the opposite.
10. GIANTS
After dust has settled, UoL and H2K found themselves grabbing LCS spots, which meant the competition for the last spot was pretty much "the best of the rest". They beat Reason convincingly, but lost to H2K just as convincingly. Honestly, there's just nothing that hypes me up for Giants - they look like a team that will prove that Riot was too quick with expanding number of LCS spots and share the fate of MRN and Dragonborns. Anything but 10th will be considered a success.
