AHQ Above All

1. AHQ e-Sports Club

Undefeated in the league, AHQ are in a tier of their own. Still they’re not quite as untouchable as their record suggests. Their bot lane has struggled in the early game, and there are clear holes for teams to exploit, especially from their jungler, Mountain, and the bottom lane. But for now, they remain undefeated and near-untouchable.

The biggest contributor to their winning record has been Ziv, who has managed to improve upon his performances last year. He’s been the stable rock of the team since the Spring playoffs last year, but with AN’s struggles in laning he’s been forced to step up once again. In that regard, he’s managed to expand his champion pool to add damage tops that were previously never a part of his pool such as Fiora and Irelia. He’s not perfect, the eternal bugbear of AHQ that is Lulu reared its ugly head when Ziv had a try at her getting solo killed twice by Nexus’ Olaf.

However, the big talking point for AHQ is the use of their two star mid laners, Chawy and Westdoor. AHQ’s implementation of both of these players into their team's system has been very smart. The mantra of “Westdoor blue, Chawy red” makes complete sense considering the two mid laners. Blue side offers the ability to threaten first picks like Kalista and Tahm Kench, which dissuades teams from expending their bans on Westdoor while on the red side Chawy is much more difficult to target. Chawy’s flexibility is best reflected by the fact that he’s yet to repeat a champion pick. He has shown the ability to play siege comps with Zilean, to skirmishing with Kassadin, proving without a doubt that both AHQ and Chawy can adapt to each other. There are games where AHQ slowly rolls over the opposing team through map movements and sieges, something that would have been inconceivable for them a year ago. However, Chawy is just as willing as Westdoor to charge first into a skirmish with the rest of the team Both mid laners have been putting up great performances and show no signs of problems synergising with the team which is a credit to AHQ for successfully making the swap work so far.

AHQ aren’t perfect, as mentioned above they have flaws and weaknesses which teams can prey upon if they aren’t patched up soon. AHQ pulling off the whole undefeated season would be a surprise, but at the same time, at this point in the season, it would be an even bigger one if they didn’t win it all in the end.

So Close, Yet So Far

These are the teams that fall just beneath AHQ. They all have some great talent and great strengths, But they’ve all got a clear and visible flaw that requires redress before they can hope to be challenging AHQ. These are the teams that have the potential to stand up to AHQ and will likely be the teams to deny AHQ the undefeated season. But they’ve still got a lot of work to do before they do so.

2. Taipei Assassins

TPA are the best early game team in the league. They have the highest gold differential @15 on average at +2,659, and the core to all of this is their jungler REFRA1N. He’s been a relentless counter jungler ever since he joined TPA and he has continued to execute that style to great effect. Leading the junglers in the league for gold and CS differential at 10, it’s clear how influential his pressure is. This is compounded by him also being the jungler with the most wards placed and cleared. REFRA1N is the essence of TPA’s game approach, playing hard and fast in the early game and trying to create a quick snowball. REFRA1N goes in, fights the other jungler, clears defensive wards and places his own deep wards and TPA play off it to further their lead.

The biggest benefactor of this is Morning, who has stepped up into the role of the team’s primary carry. He leads the league in his role for gold and CS differentials at 10 while the other lanes for TPA have more modest laning numbers, making it clear who the priority is on. To that end, Morning has done a respectable job making use of the leads which are given to him. The other lanes are more modest, Bebe, Jay, and Fofo have settled into solid players to back up their top side, providing a stable base for them to play off.

That being said, TPA has the third longest games in the league which is bizarre given their great early game stats. The problem that TPA has is if they can’t cleanly shut out a game off their early game prowess, they tends to get lost and struggle to end the game. In spite of their great vision statistics players tends to get caught. In particular, Morning and Fofo have been prone to fits of poor decision making, which have cost them games. Fofo’s poor positioning and TP usage against HKES led to a loss in what should have been a comfortable victory for TPA. TPA needs to show capacity beyond early game snowballs before they can be reliably considered a true contender for AHQ’s throne. REFRA1N is good, but he can’t garner unassailable leads every game and TPA will have to deal with their issues sooner rather than later.

3. Flash Wolves

Rins has been the big change for Flash Wolves. While not quite the revelation that was he was hoped to be after his impressive debut game against TPA, he’s a strong top laner who has given the team new dimensions that they didn’t have with Steak. Strong laning and performances on carry tops were previously something the Flash Wolves could only dream of, and it's bringing some new life into the Flash Wolves. They’ve shown more versatility than before with reduced dependence on Maple having to draw pressure towards the mid lane to relieve his ailing side lanes. NL has been a particular beneficiary of it showing improved laning though his team fight and mid-game positioning remain suspect.

What stands out the most for the Flash Wolves is Maple’s incredible performances, especially on Zed, with a 9.5 KDA and most notably a dominating 12/0/5 performance against Hong Kong Esports. Yet what's most promising about Maple isn’t his assassin play, his skill on assassins like Zed was already well known. He’s been picking up the likes of Lulu and Ryze and been putting up solid performances; this reflects how the Flash Wolves have changed. The team no longer leans on Maple, with NL’s improved laning and Rins the team doesn’t need mid lane to be drawing all the pressure. They can have Maple play a more backseat role and trust in the other lanes which speak positively of the Flash Wolves’ future.

Yet the bugbears that gnaw at the Flash Wolves haven’t been wholly erased. Their struggle to integrate Breeze has seen them retain NL in the starting position, despite NL's long recognised issues regarding mid game positioning and team fighting. Collectively the team still suffers from consistency issues with the now all too expected collapse occurring against Xgamers where they seemed to forget everything and continually fall for the bait of Yo’s aggression. Karsa and Swordart continue to grapple with their inconsistencies with both not quite recognising their limits and often over-extending and overestimating themselves giving up many sloppy and unnecessary deaths. The Flash Wolves feel like the team best suited to bring down AHQ, but with a 0-8 loss streak against them and the team unable to properly iron out their flaws, it seems likely that the streak would extend to 0-10 if the two teams were to meet anytime soon.

4. Machi E-Sports

The star of Machi is easily their support, Dreamer. Sitting atop gold differential and kill participation for supports in the league his importance to the team is evident. He is the team’s big playmaker and initiator, he leads the charge, and the team follows behind him. He’s been one of, if not the best, performing support in the league at this moment; highlighted by a game against MSE where he had 100% kill participation where Machi had more than twenty kills. Dee is the obvious benefactor of Dreamer's play, sitting atop CS and gold differentials for AD carries. Dee, however, does sit much lower in terms of damage and kill participation which reflects how much Dreamer tends to leave Dee alone to farm so he can impact the rest of the map.

The rest of the roster has been reasonably solid but have flaws. Bobo and Apex have had their good performances; Apex was impressive on Lux in the first week while Bobo showed some strong carry performances on the likes of Olaf and Fiora so far this split. But neither have really shown consistent playmaking ability, both average out as solid players that do a good job of keeping pace with Dreamer. This is compounded by Taizan’s rookie blues, as he's gotten abused by the more experienced junglers in the league. It’s not that the players are bad, but they seem overly reliant on Dreamer’s playmaking ability to play out games.

What this all reflects is that Machi is a team still struggling to find an identity. Machi admitted that they had grown reliant on raw mechanical abilities playing with Fiesta and Republic last split, and it reflects how they are still struggling with some sloppy decision making. As it stands, brute force and raw skill are what keeps them above the lower teams, but they are 1-5 against the teams above them on the ladder. They’re likely to make playoffs as they can overpower the teams beneath them, but they'll need to develop a better understanding of the meta to challenge the top three.

The Upset Potential

These are the teams with some severe limitations and deeply flawed playstyles that are unlikely to bring them consistent wins. They need to put a lot of work into their rosters and game approach if they want to rise above. These teams aren’t free wins, but they lack in many areas which keep them from being much more than the occasional game taken off higher teams.

5. Hong Kong Esports

It was difficult to decide whether HKES were in this tier or the one above. After some consideration and examination of the games, it feels like their play style and talent have too many deficiencies to really be in the tier above. That’s not to say that they don’t have some upsides. Dinter and Olleh are still in good form and Rokenia has been a stable factor for the team to work around. Olleh continues to shine as one of the league’s best supports, sitting on top of wards placed and cleared, while Dinter continues to improve since joining HKES.

The issues for HKES are twofold. First is Godkwai. Normally it’s unfair to properly single out a player but Godkwai is an issue that has to be called out. Sitting low or near the bottom in nearly all statistical measures, Godkwai is a glaring issue. In spite of playing with one of the best supports in Olleh he is consistently caught out and mispositions. HKES’ team fighting often feels like a race against time to clean up the fight before Godkwai makes a fatal mistake. While MapleSnow has improved remarkably and become a respectable top laner in his own right he doesn’t quite overpower the other tops and Rokenia is merely a stable role player, far from a carry. That puts much of the burden onto Godkwai and he has failed to deliver when the pressure is on. Godkwai needs to tighten up his play in nearly every aspect before HKES can be bumped up into a legitimate playoffs threat.

HKES's other issue is their unstable playstyle. They tend to be dependent on clutch moments in the later game. They will struggle in the laning phase and rely on Olleh and Dinter’s vision control to patiently wait for the opportunity to make a pick. This has resulted in some dramatic turnarounds, but it’s not been great for anything more than sniping an unlikely single map win off the top teams. Leaning on Dinter and Olleh isn’t a bad idea but as it stands they are too dependent on the other team making a mistake. They struggle with proactivity and end up reactively waiting for opportunities presented by the other teams. As the season progresses teams will learn to tighten up these problems, play safe and slowly roll over HKES. They need to show that they can create opportunities for themselves rather than waiting for opportunities to present themselves.

Of all the teams in this third tier, HKES are by far the most likely to challenge for playoffs. To do so, they'll need a laner that can firmly say “give me the gold and I will carry”. Maplesnow seems like the most reliable candidate, but leaning on Maplesnow against the likes of Morning, Ziv and Rins is an optimistic prospect to say the last. It’s hard not to feel like this HKES roster is a holdover until Raison is unbanned, but since that isn’t happening anytime soon, it’s likely that these talent deficiencies will remain for a while longer. As long as they are struggling with these unreliable lanes which result in their volatile playstyle, it’s hard to put HKES into playoffs contention.

6. eXtreme Gamers

Of all the teams in this tier, this is the team that’s built for an upset. Their playstyle is ridiculously unstable based around the blind aggression of their jungler, Yo. Xgamers are a team that depends on blindsiding the opposing team, taking fights and dives that no team would consider and hoping to blow up the opposing team before anything can happen. This kind of unpredictability is the key factor for their split defining 2-0 upset of the Flash Wolves. This has however often backfired, as the team lives and dies by Yo. When he gets caught or initiates a fight, there’s zero hesitation in the follow-up. The entire team immediately piles into the fight, and if it was a poorly chosen fight, the entire team will suffer the consequences.

The other key thing to note about xGamers is their mid laner, Suwako. He has emerged as the team’s big player sitting on top of DPM and damage statistics with a staggering 730 DPM so far. Suwako isn’t perfect, just like his team he’s prone to overaggression and overly ambitious positioning, but it’s hard to imagine the team having even a fraction of their surprising success without Suwako. If there’s any player in this tier likely to get poached by a top tier team in the future, it will be Suwako. Suwako’s exceptional performances are likely going to be what keeps this team out of relegations, whether Xgamers solidifies in the Summer or a big team takes him away it’s hard not to see a bright future for Suwako regardless of how this split goes for the team.

The rest of the team, however, is rather unremarkable. While less prone to big positional errors and greed, they tend to be non-factors and serve as blank slates that blindly follow Yo. But there are some interesting things to be said about top laner Nexus, notably his Sion play and solo kills onto Ziv with Olaf. He's been remarkably diligent in punishing laning mistakes from the opposing top laner, but outside of the lane, he tends to fall rank and file with blindly following Yo. It’d be interesting to see the team put more initiation power onto Nexus; he seems more measured in the few times the team entrusted him to lead the charge.

Ultimately, it’s hard to see Xgamers do little more than snipe a win here or there and dodge relegations. Underwhelming player skill beyond Suwako and a highly exploitable style is something that’s already wearing the team down and is likely to only get worse as the season progresses. Hopefully, with some restructuring of their gameplay, the team may return in the Summer as a better and more legitimate team.

7. Midnight Sun Esports

No other team was thoroughly ruined in the off-season like MSE. They had a good showing last split, with LOFS emerging as a serious top laner and their Koreans of Stitch and Candy were progressing well. The team made playoffs and regionals, and while they were ultimately crushed by superior teams it seemed that MSE had found something good and could go places. Then some unknown team poached every player bar Stitch, and Garena promptly banned all of them for signing contracts while still being contracted with MSE.

With Stitch returning to Korea, MSE were forced to start from square one. Prior to week four they were frequently crushed and had only one win to their name. But in week four, the team started to make full use of their second support Kaiwing, and the decision paid off massively. With Kaiwing they showed off great performances against the top two teams, TPA and AHQ. Despite going 1-3 in games, for the first time MSE looked like a serious team.

It was Kaiwing’s Thresh play that lead them to a surprisingly strong week. Winning the bot lane hard and making essential picks and initiations, he has completely revitalized MSE. The rest of the team has picked up their play around Kaiwing. ADC CorGi has put up far better performances thanks to the lane dominance Kaiwing provides, and their mid and jungle of M1ssion and Wuala have capitalized on Kaiwing’s pressure. Wuala, in particular, has become one of the few junglers to truly stand up to REFRA1N, ending the TPA series with a solid 90% kill participation.

That’s not to say that there aren’t concerns, like what will happen if Kaiwing loses Thresh. It’s not to say that Kaiwing is a one-trick, but we have yet to see if the team have the same success without his dominance on the champion. M1ssion is also a concern – he’s had some solid performances on Viktor and Corki but he’s yet to show much more. Underwhelming Lissandra and Lulu performances give pause as to how deep MSE’s roster runs. Currently sitting in seventh place, with only two 1-1 series to their name, MSE will need to answer these questions soon if they wish to avoid relegations.

A Lonely Cougar

8. Cougar E-Sport

Zero wins while having the shortest games, what else is there to say about Cougar? Cougar are to be blunt, utterly hopeless. They’re getting solo killed in lanes repeatedly; every other team destroys Cougar from start to finish. The only accomplishment so far for them is their mid laner, Kuku, getting solo killed five times in one game by Maple.

There’s virtually zero chances for this team to be anything other than dead last, despite their attempts to make changes. Cougar brought in a new top and support in XUE and CandyBB, and are slowly getting stomped less hard. Right now Cougar Esports’ goal should be to avoid the Dream or Reality award of going utterly winless in the season, which would be doubly impressive as DoR “accomplished” it when LMS was Bo1. But given that even MSE have demonstrably improved, it looks very possible that Cougar will achieve the 0–28 dream.