[NA LCS] Summer 2014 Super Week 1

On May 21 2014 22:35 ExceliosBeyond wrote:
I think people are underestimating Curse. You can talk about the real skill upgrades made by Dig/TSM in the offseason and the fact that LMQ have such skilled laners but the fact of the matter is that those teams still suck at playing the map until they show otherwise.

Curse showed they know how to play the map well in the last few weeks of LCS, they put the screws to TSM until the massive throw in Week 10 and they also did well against C9 in the playoffs. Think about it this way: Curse got more kills in a single 10-minute span of Game 1 VS C9 than TSM did in three entire games.

Quas really started coming into his own at the end of the season, Xpecial can only upgrade the bot lane performance and I think with Yasuo (probably Voy's best champion) becoming more of a meta pick, we could see Curse exceeding a lot of these 6th-place expectations I'm seeing. Doubt they'll be top 3 but I wouldn't be surprised if they end up forever fourth over LMQ and Dig.

Still surprised by all the Dig hype personally. Now you have the shotcallers from Coast and Dig on the same team, I'm sure only hilarity will come from that.

On May 22 2014 00:04 Swords wrote:
I honestly think Dig is being overhyped - at least for the start of this split. I fucking love Dig, and I really like the addition of Shiphtur and Zion, but that group still has to learn to play together and they already have shotcalling issues as people have pointed out.

I think in the long run Dig could be really strong. Shiphtur is amazing, Zion is good and still growing as a young player, Crumbzz/Qt/Kiwi are all solid, but it's a matter of them getting synergy together and hopefully learning to close out games. That'll take some time, so I'm not really expecting a ton out of them for the first few weeks at the least. It could even take the whole split before they really start working well together.

Also, I think Curse's biggest problem last split was objective control, even moreso than Voyboy not really being a midlaner. They gave up so many dragons and towers for free, and if they do that this split they're going to have a really hard time.

On May 22 2014 23:35 AlterKot wrote:
I actually think this might be the most interesting split in LCS history. Last summer in EU was interesting, but in the end all the teams disappointed (NiP and Alternate were heartbreakers, Gambit and EG steadily declined, SK and MyM were meh, and even Lomodogs in their prime failed against supersayian Fnatic). This time NA has so much potential that even if they meet expectations only in 50%, it should still be interesting.

C9/CLG > TSM/LMQ/CRS/Dig > EG/Col

First of all, I was never a CLG fan up until now so I'm not afraid of being called delusional :^) They have best botlane, likely best toplaner, probably second best jungler and mid who can stand his own against guys like Shiptur and Bjergsen. And in terms of macro strategy, they were just getting better and better throughout the split. Of course they fell against TSM last split so I don't expect them to dominate early, but I think by the end of the split they'll be able to stand their own against C9. And C9 are pretty much the best western team right now so future looks promising for NA.

The second bracket comes from the fact that I have high expectations for LMQ and CRS and low expectations for Dig and TSM. LMQ have a toptier chinese toplaner, a good chinese ADC and the Asian discipline - they weren't toptier in China and being able to dominate challenger scene is hardly something that proves they could potentially be third in LCS, but on paper they look strong. CRS actually did pretty well in terms of macro strategy last time and their biggest problems were botlane roulette and Voyboy. Quas is good, IWDominate is good (I would put him right after Meteos and Germans), Xpecial never stopped impressing me. Maybe they will swap in Mancloud with Voyboy in the middle of the season, who knows :^) TSM... They can definitely be 2nd, maybe Gleeb won't be a big downgrade from Xpecial and Amazing will turn out to be even better than Dexter, but I find it hard to believe in Reginaldo's luck in finding roster members and OddOne's coaching. Dig can just as well be 6th and 2nd, maybe Shiptur is out of elo hell and can be the second Bjergsen, or maybe they still have shitty shotcalling that no ammount of coaching will fix, definitely biggest unknow of this split. Don't have much to say about last two other than "I love Westrice <3" and "Krepo pls retire and replace Quickshot pls".

Oh and I still think that only good western toplaners are Balls and Zoro, I'm expecting Ackerman and Seraph to roflstomp their competition. I'm suprised people are hyping up Innox, but then I don't like EG :^)

On May 23 2014 07:45 AlterKot wrote:
They have a fucking Korean toplaner how can one not be part of #CLGLegion