With so many roster changes within every team, the tournament became a sneak peak of what to expect for the upcoming Spring Split.
Day One:
TSM vs LGD
As well all know, Team SoloMid had almost a completely new roster for every position, excluding their star mid laner Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg. We got to see the debut of their newly formed team that consisted of Kevin “Hauntzer” Yarnell, Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen, Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, and Ryan “KaSing” Tsang. Although these players are not new to the eSports scene, they were chosen to play at IEM SJ and had little time to practice all together.
On the other hand, LGD Gaming’s roster pretty much stayed the same, but we were unsure whether or not the team had fixed the problems they’ve had since their World Championship performance.
TSM were able to win the first game after almost playing for an hour. LGD opted to switch out their top laner Ho-jong “Flame” Lee with Cheon-ju “Acorn” Choi in hopes that their switch will solve the team’s problems. Even with the swap, LGD could not solidify a victory, ultimately giving TSM the 2-0 in the best of 3 series.
Celebrity ARAM
In hopes to raise money for the CyberSmile Foundation, businessman Mark Cuban challenged Brian Krzanich, the CEO of Intel, in a celebrity ARAM game. They were joined by eight other professional players, creating teams of two.
Team Cuban consisted of:
- Mark “MarkCuban” Cuban on Ziggs
- Andy “Reginald” Dinh on Olaf
- William “Meteos” Hartman on Lucian
- Joedat “Voyboy” Esfahani on Corki
- Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng on Katarina
Team, Krzanich consisted of:
- Brian “BrianK” Krzanich on Ashe
- Steve “Chauster” Chau on Fiora
- Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg on Diana
- Hai “Hai” Lam on Urgot
- George “HotShotGG” Georgallidis on Sejuani
In a pretty much one sided game, Team Cuban achieves victory. Although Cuban became victorious, he did slip the f bomb when being interviewed before the match and he was notified after winning of the $15,000 fine he received. He then prompted to curse once more making his fine raise to $30,000, but it was for a good cause.
CLG vs UOL
With the loss of their star ADC, Counter Logic Gaming turned to Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes to fill the void that Doublelift has left behind. Another change to the roster includes the switch from Eugene “Pobelter” Park to Jae-hyun “HuHi” Choi. We weren’t sure whether or not their roster changes were going to heavily affect their gameplay and make us doubt whether or not they’ll still be contenders in the tournament.
Unicorns of Love once played in this exact tournament along with TSM last year, making it into the finals. Although the team looked great last year, this year’s team is completely different. The team acquired three new players for jungle, mid, and ADC: Berk “Gilius” Demir, Hampus “Fox” Myhre, and Pierre “Steelback” Medjaldi. With these new additions, we, too, were unsure whether or not they had enough time to practice as a newly established roster.
As the games proceeded, CLG’s gameplay made the two matches very one sided. Many predicted this outcome since UOL has been looking pretty weak lately and with the new roster, they surely did not have as much time on their hands as their opponents on CLG.
Day Two:
OG vs TSM
After losing the semi-finals at Worlds, Origen still looked like the team to beat. What also made them the ideal victors of the entire tournament was the fact that out of all the teams at IEM San Jose, they had the least amount of roster changes. The only addition they had on the team was acquiring UOL’s star mid laner Tristan “PowerOfEvil” Schrage while Enrique “xPeke” Cedeño filled in as head coach.
Following the trend of the tournament, OG’s performance against TSM was very one sided. They won with a predictable 2-0 and were moving on to the finals. TSM still put up a fight, but their lack of team synergy and practice caused them to get booted out. The team still has until the start of the spring split to work out their problems, but we still have to keep in mind that this roster was said to be temporarily for IEM only.
CLG vs JAG
JinAir Green Wings may not be one of the top tier Korean teams, but they were still respectable. Although the team played with a new roster, JAG hoped to show foreign teams that they are a force to be reckoned with and that they will be as good as their competitors in Korea one day.
Many people still doubted the new CLG team, thinking that they only won because UOL wasn’t looking too hot. To our surprise, CLG became the first North American team to defeat a Korean team in a best of 3 match, winning 2-0. The big difference with this match was that it was the closest games compared to the others in the tournament. The first game was barely won by CLG with Darshan “Darshan” Upadhyaha’s backdoor as Jax. Darshan proved to the crowd that he was a player to watch as he single handedly carried the team to victory once again after the end of game 2 where he had the most kills on the team.
CLG vs OG
The finals became an NA vs EU matchup. After seeing how much CLG depended on Darshan, OG knew that they needed to shut him down. The team made sure that Darshan wouldn’t be able to get away with split pushing the entire game, just as he had in the previous match against JAG. CLG fumbled against OG’s pressure, ultimately making OG the victors of this year’s tournament.
Conclusion:
Every team that has participated at IEM San Jose 2015 had at least one roster change. This year’s tournament served as a trial run for each team, giving us a preview on what to expect in the upcoming split. The one team we know that will surely be seen as a threat next year is EU’s Origen.
