Image Credit: hubhomedesign.com
With the last major regional final having come to a close in Korea, all the champions have been crowned and the lineup for the Mid Season Invitational been crowned. A preview of what is to come.
Qualified teams:
SK Telekom T1
Edward Gaming
Fnatic
Team Solo Mid
AHQ
Besiktas e-Sports club
Lets start at the top: SK Telekom T1 was the last team to qualify just this weekend after soundly beating GE Tigers in the LCK Finals. Most notably they did it without Faker and Bengi. Not only that but EasyHoon and the rookie jungler Tom got all three MVP awards in the dominant 3-0 series. If there was any doubt that the winner of the Korean regionals would enter MSI as the favourites it has been thoroughly eradicated by this performance, putting SKT back to where they were at the end of 2013: on top of Korea and probably the world.
Photo: Twitter
One of SKT's biggest strength is their smart objective control and dragon fights. In all the three games of the Series against GE, the tigers only got two dragons and in the three games they won in the round prior, CJ only got three dragons as well. A big part of that is the great fight control by MaRin and his champion pool. He loves Gnar, Rumble and Maokai which all excel at controlling chokes, zoning and cc. But also Tom has come into his own in the tank meta having great teamfighting and skillshot accuracy on Sejuani and outsmarting his opponents with Nunu in the regional finals.
The fact that EasyHoon has carried two out of the three games in the finals as the MVP on Cassiopeia and Azir - even getting two solo kills - just makes SKT even more terrifying than they already are. Especially because these champions mark a tiny whole in Faker's ever so vast champion pool. Another big improvement in the lineup has been that Telekom's AD carry Bang has shown that he is more than just the teams janitor, cleaning up fights after Faker did all the work. He has proven that impressively in the 70 minute game four against CJ Entus in which SKT played a Juggermaw-like composition but with Lucian. Bang dodged literally every single skillshot dashing forwards aggressively with Faker's Lulu protecting him, driving fear into his opposition. It is quite obvious that they are expected to at least make the finals and probably win the entire event.
Photo: Lolesports
Over in Europe Fnatic have taken the LCS title yet again, against all odds and a completely revamped roster. With four out of the five players playing their first LCS season and some even playing on the stage for the first time ever most of this win has to be credited to Yellowstar's supreme leadership and shotcalling.
The young squad has some blatantly obvious flaws which were really exposed by the Unicorns of Love in the finals. They are well known for being one dimensional in their style, taking every fight across the map wherever, whenever and taking risks that shouldn't pay off. Yet despite all that they came through because they have such a wide variety of ways and champions to make their most effective style work and their skirmishing is really good. Especially Huni has come into his own as an established carry top laner consistently receiving target bans, sometimes even all three especially for his Rumble, Lissandra and Hecarim.
Reignover received the MVP award for Fnatic's playoff and even though he is really good at pressuring the map with his Rek'Sai and Rengar his champion pool is still limited and he tends to get caught out in places with insufficient vision. Steelback is what Bang used to be for SKT: a pure support carry and janitor, playing utility and poke champions like Sivir, Corki and Kalista more than anything. His stats are usually incredible with KDA's like 8/1/9 but that is mostly a result of his role in the team and Yellowstar and Reignovers setups and his laning is actually quite weak even in his region. That said, Steelback is really good at what he does and fitting what Fnatic needs. So we are left with the mid lane and this is where it gets really interesting as Febiven has made a good argument for being maybe the best mid laner in Europe and this tournament will be a great test as to whether he can compete with the worlds elite.
Photo: Lolesports
Across the pond nothing much has changed from the last seasons. The NA finals once more featured TSM and C9 with the fan favourites coming out on top in another close final. While their superstar Bjergsen is maybe playing the best League of Legends of his career being clearly a level above any other player in his region, he was not like in the spring split where he would just completely take over every game and win the game single handedly. So finally we will get to see what we yearned for ever since the young Dane truly burst onto the scene: Bjergsen vs. Faker.
Few player matchups will be as hyped as this mid lane duel and even though Faker is still the greatest player to have ever graced this game the TSM mid laner finally gets a chance to show whether one can even dare compare these two. But as we all know the mid lane is not a pure 1v1 (at least in non-laneswap games) but a 2v2 between mid laners and junglers. It is unarguable that Santorin has truly grown as a player ever since he came into his first games at IEM San Jose where he looked completely lost, admittedly not all to his fault. His counter ganking and sense of where to be on the map as well as his vision control are what allows TSM to execute their fast paced rotational style. Especially his synergy with Korean import Lustboy has increased thousandfold and the dynamic duo are the major reason why the TSM system works as fluidly as it does in their wins.
However, TSM also has some visible weaknesses, most obviously their late game shotcalling is still not where it should be and AD Carry Wildturtle still keeps flashing in for kills and gets caught out more than he'd like to admit. But when he gets rolling he can come into his own, playing out his aggressive "go ham" style he can snowball out of control. Which is why analyst and LMS caster ClementChu said that TSM should base their compositions more around him because Bjergsen is usually going to go off or at lest even no matter what his part is, whereas Wildturtle relies on the peel and zoning from his team. There is not much to say about Dyrus to be honest, he has been the same consistent rock for basically four years now and one knows what he's going to get from him. Let's just hope he doesn't tilt like he still sometimes does and just drops off a cliff in terms of perfomance.
Image via: The Score
The other big contender for the MSI title are Chinese champions Edward Gaming. They dominated the regular season all split long being head and shoulders above the competition in wins and points. The two big factors for their prevalence are their ex-Samsung imports Pawn and Deft. Both are contenders for being the best at their position worldwide and Pawn's playmaking and Deft's carry potential are only matched by the world's very elite. Ever since Pawn won season 4 Worlds he has extended his champion pool to a Faker-like extreme, looking comfortable on almost anything he plays.
But his comfort zone still lies with assassins. Pawn puts the "W" into Kassawin, his LeBlanc is probably only outshined by Faker's and he still has the Fizz mechanics down to a T just like when he started being pro. His heavy roaming and ganking playstyle assisted by jungler Clearlove are what usually start the EDG warmachine. Halfway through the game he high-fives his Korean teammate and passes Deft the carry torch who gladly takes over and crushes the opposition with the perfect teamfight positioning and skillshot accuracy he was already so well known for in Samsung Blue. He usually plays hypercarries like Kog'Maw and is undefeated on Jinx. Sivir is also a key pick for EDG who love the teamfight assisting ultimate and AoE as they are probably one of, if not the best teamfighting team in the world. Deft also famously carried his team to the LPL victory on the back of his Pentakill in game five that you can relive down below.
In the top lane Koro1 is potentially the best top laner of the region, famous for his Gnar which he is undefeated on. He can keep up with anyone and almost always has good to significant game impact, especially in big fights. Finally, Clearlove is famed by many analysts of the Chinese scene is often praised as the best jungler in the region, but it also often the reason when EDG falls behind early because he farms more than he ganks to be ready for the deciding 5v5 fights which he truly thrives in. There is little blatant weakness to EDG but often their game gets quite chaotic and prone to mistakes which can be abused and punished. If there is one advice to give playing against EDG is that you really do not want to take on this team in a straight up 5v5 teamfight, because Deft will probably destroy you.
Hailing from Taiwan the Ahq e-Sports Club the team around old school star mid laner Westdoor miraculously swept their way to win the playoffs coming in as the fourth seed loosing only one game in the finals to Yoe Flash Wolves. Their mid laner is their primary true carry and is most dangerous on assassins like Zed and Fizz and according to his teammates best when split pushing in a 4-1. However. against TPA he also successfully played Karthus twice, a champion that only EasyHoon has made work this season. Their style seems to be not too unlike SKT with the mid laner absorbing most of the enemies attention and cooldowns and AD Carry AN being free to clean house. Furthermore, they have immaculate dragon control, winning most of their game having taken down the monster four or five times.
Yet despite their highly impressive playoff run, sweeping HKE and TPA dropping only one game to Yoe they still enter the MSI as heavy underdogs. Their skill man for man compared to the elite competition at this tournament probably just can't hold up to the task. It is not completely out of line to think that Ahq might make the bracket stage although it remains highly unlikely, but stranger things have happened.
Look forward to May 7th through 10th as the teams battle it out on the rift in a double round robin leading into a best of 5 bracket stage in Talahassee, Florida!
