As a result of top laner Shin "Seraph" Woo Yeong's need to return to Korea to finalize his visa to stay in California, the rest of Counter Logic Gaming will follow him for a chance at steep competition and a more hands on approach from their coach.
As a result of Seraph's need for an upgrade to a P1-A visa by August 1st, he will be unable to compete in the League Championship Series this week with his team, Counter Logic Gaming. Rather than compete in the final LCS Superweek with a substitute player, CLG has made the decision to take the opportunity to move the entire team to Korea for a bootcamp. This will give them an opportunity to play against steeper competition and to work under direct contact with their coach, Christopher "Monte Cristo" Mykles, who lives in Korea and casts OnGameNet League of Legends matches in English.
As CLG has performed relatively well throughout this past split, they are already gauranteed to place in the top six of the North American LCS. Even if they lose all their games and fifth and sixth place teams, Dignitas and Curse, manage to win all four of their games, CLG will still earn a spot in the playoffs with a sixth place seed where a strong performance will still grant them a Season Four World Championship berth. According to LCS rules, however, CLG cannot simply forfeit their matches and must produce a roster for the week. As a result, the following five players will compete for CLG during Week 11.
Zach "Nien" Malhas
Thomas "Thinkcard" Slotkin
George "HotshotGG" Georgallidis
Shan "Chaox" Huang
Kon Kwon
Nien and HotshotGG are previous members of the team, and HotshotGG has already subbed for CLG once this season. Chaox is a previous member of Team SoloMid and current coach for Team Coast. ThinkCard and Kon Kwon are Challenger players and roommates. Though this roster is unlikely to pull an upset, CLG assures fans they found the most competitive group to play in their stead.
CLG will face Team Dignitas, Complexity, Evil Geniuses, and Cloud9 in Week 11, which some argue will give these teams an unfair boost in the rankings and a better seed in playoffs. Considering Cloud9 and Team SoloMid are currently tied in second place, and second place will assure a first round playoff bye over third, this point is not without merit.
To explain the logic behind the move, coach Monte Cristo provided the following opinion.
Yes, the decision to stay together to maximize practice as a full roster against better teams with a coach present is ALWAYS the best choice
— MonteCristo (@ggCMonteCristo) July 30, 2014
He also apologized to fans looking forward to watching CLG play in the last week and to anyone with CLG members on their Fantasy rosters. The question is whether CLG will put their time away to good use and come out swinging in the playoffs.
Source: Counter Logic Gaming
