North American LCS Spring 2015:
1. Team Liquid
Team Liquid has seen very little competition since Summer 2014, when they were under the title Curse, but after the off-season acquisitions of Fenix (formerly Jin Air Greenwings) and Piglet (formerly world champions SKT T1 K), their roster is looking scarier than ever.
2. Cloud 9
After a confident win at IEM San Jose, Cloud 9 are favorites coming into the season. They are almost too favored and that's why I can't give them the #1 seed.
3. Team Impulse
This fedora-tippin' team is completely made-over and ready for the new season. Boasting the newcomers of former world champion Impact, Rush, Apollo (Wizfujin), and Popstar Adrian, TIP is looking mysteriously powerful.
4. Gravity Gaming
Gravity Gaming, formerly Curse Academy, contains the ex-Curse players Saintvicious and Cop, and is therefore destined to finish fourth. Led by their pony-riding midlaner, Keane, they are sure to pull out some interesting strategies and exciting games.
5. Team Solomid
After getting rekt 0-2 by seemingly weak European newcomer Unicorns of Love in San Jose, TSM is looking shady. The season will likely look like this: strong 4-0 start, shaky mid-season, strong finish.
6. Team Coast
While Coast is just an expansion team, their European imports of Impaler and Jesiz looked terrifying in their 3-2 win over Fusion in the expansion tournament. They will likely upset some of the top teams, but lay low throughout most of the season.
7. Counter Logic Gaming
Counter Logic Gaming put up an okay performance at IEM Cologne. While poaching Scarra and Zionspartan from the hands of Dignitas might have seemed genius at the time, HotshotGG is rapidly running out of money to throw at the team and buy success. CLG probably would have liked to follow the path of every other NA team and buy and import from Korea or Europe, but after the disappointment that was Seraph, CLG has stayed with an All-American lineup that isn't likely to find much success soon.
8. Team 8
It's right in the name. Team 8 was hands-down the strongest challenger team during their climb to the LCS. In minor tournaments since, they have looked contrastingly sloppy. Like Coast, they have the ability to knock off big names, but in a league as competitive as the NA LCS, they will struggle to find wins.
9. Winterfox
Formerly EG/Velocity, Winterfox has a strange roster. They have the powerful wonderchildren that are Pobelter (the original P.O.B.), Altec (comparable to Fabby), and Helios (he's Korean). However, when they looked on the Korean menu, all the main, good dishes seemed to be taken already. They picked up the solo-queue players of Avalon and Imagine, both with little-to-no competitive experience. Despite boasting the 3/5ths compromise limit of 3 Koreans, Winterfox is likely to be a bit too cold throughout the season.
10. Team Dignitas
Dignitas struggled against Turkish team Aces High and was crushed convincingly by Gambit at IEM Cologne. Despite Korean imports, they are nothing without the lord and savior QTpie.
European LCS Spring 2015:
1. Elements
Unlike Elementz, the self-proclaimed superteam is likely to find great success in the upcoming season. After snatching Rekkles away from fnatic, they have a stronger roster than ever, and have by now worked out the kinks that plagued them near the beginning of the formation of the team.
2. Gambit Gaming
Gambit convincingly 2-0'd Dignitas and 3-1'd CLG at IEM Cologne. The team has been full of momentum ever since their strong finish in the last week of the Summer LCS. I don't know how it works, but they seem to produce wins.
3. Unicorns of Love
These LCS newcomers are full of tricks up their sleeves. Bringing out the Poppy in their promotion matches, along with a jungle Twisted Fate against TSM, UoL is scary and unpredictable. PowerOfEvil, their midlaner, plays more meta champions terrifyingly.
4. SK Gaming
SK has a decent roster, including arrivals Watdefox and Forgiven. They will likely perform well, but be marked with fines after Svenskeren cusses out someone in solo-queue.
5. Team ROCCAT
Roccat played okay at IEM Cologne. They recently picked up ADC Woolite, and they seem to be a rather average team.
6. H2k Gaming
They have a strong roster that includes ex-KT Rolster player Ryu, but I'mma be honest: the only reason I chose H2k for this spot is because of their off-season coach pickup, Pr0lly.
7. Copenhagen Wolves
Newcomer Freeze has finally reached the LCS again, after a many close come-by (look up the Freeze Curse). Now that he's finally here, we're unsure whether we'll see a rage-filled beast or a man tired from his struggles.
8. Fnatic
Fnatic is a completely revamped roster, save support YellowStar. With the additions of Koreans Huni and ReignOver, you would think they would get a higher ranking, but Huni is from solo-queue and ReignOver is from Incredible Miracle. No high expectations here.
9. MeetYourMakers
MYM (formerly Supa Hot Crew) has three of its members from last season: Mimer, Selfie (now Kori), and Mr. Rallez. After coming near worlds last year, the team has fallen back a little bit. New acquisition H0R0 was lackluster in his performance in the expansion tournament with Millenium.
10. Giants Gaming
While the all-Spanish team did manage to beat Korean-filled Millenium in the expansion tournament, their only recognizable star is Rydle, formerly of G2. They also saw very little competition during the tournament, going 10-4 with 6 of their wins being against Reason Gaming.
Jawn's Worldwide Top 25 Power Rankings
CHINA, EULCS, NALCS, LCK, SEA/Taiwan, Wildcard.
1. OMG1. LGD
1. Edward Gaming
1. Invictus Gaming
5. Star Horn Royal Club
5. GE Tigers
7. Snake
8. CJ Entus
9. Master3
10. SK Telecom T1
11. Vici Gaming
12. Jin Air Green Wings
13. Najin e-mFire
14. Elements
15. Team Liquid
16. Cloud 9
17. Gambit Gaming
18. Incredible Miracle
19. KT Rolster
20. World Elite
21. Taipei Assassins
22. Unicorns of Love
23. Detonation FocusMe
24. Avant Garde
25. Saigon Fantastic Five
Taipei Assassins - LMS (Taiwanese league)
Detonation FocusMe - Japan
Avant Garde - Oceania
Saigon Fantastic Five - GPL/VCS (Vietnamese league)
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