There are winners and there are losers. This is the understood dynamic of competition that all involved must accept before they even play a single game against their opponents, regardless of what type of game or competition it is. No different is the LCS with the introduction of franchising to NA, but we are still a while off from the first game that will be played in Santa Monica for those lucky teams that managed to secure a spot, after the announcement of the NALCS Franchising.

With four new teams entering, a lot of players have been shuffling around with many of them figured out, but only a few of them are considered to be the projected favorites and the assumed losers. Those that find themselves at the bottom of the barrel will be the focus of today. Keep in mind that you can support and love each of these teams, and we encourage you to do so. Even though they are what are deemed the losers now, they can always pull off an upset to be one of the top contenders at the end of the summer split.

Golden Guardians

For a new team to enter the league, they needed to make a statement in order to garner a lot of fans, especially with the fact that they are replacing Immortals, Team Dignitas, Team EnVyUs, and Phoenix1. And they did one thing really smart, which is pick up a player that has a lot of stardom as well as being a terrific shot-caller in Hai. On top of that, they were able to take away Contractz from Cloud9 so that they could have a member that had been to Worlds this past year. Things were going right for them with these two picks.

Sadly, they didn’t draft a team to back that up too well. Lourlo and Matt from Team Liquid and Deftly from eUnited were the other pickups for GGS. Two of these members had placed 9th in the summer of 2017 and the other was a part of a team that was 3-0’d by that very team of Lourlo and Matt. None of these players have been standouts in their roles that would merit them to stand above some of the immense talent from around the World that is looking to gain a slot on any team that could have them.

Former eUnited player Defty joins Golden Guardians

If this ends up being the final roster for GGS, it will take more than a few miracles for the incredible shot-calling of Hai to get this team over some of the other powerhouses that are going to be a part of the team next year. Of course, this hasn’t been completely finalized for the year and things can change. On top of that, these are all players that do want to make a name for themselves. Deftly, while a part of eUnited, managed to hold up well against Piglet and Arrow and defeated Rikara and Madlife in the promotion tournament to knock out Gold Coin United. There is potential, but it will take a lot of work for this team to come out from the bottom of the bunch to contend for the crown.

Echo Fox

Shedding themselves from their former selves, FOX clearly want to show the world of franchising that they are nothing like their 2017 form. They dropped everyone from their roster, including the mechanically brilliant player of Froggen, with the hope of starting off fresh into the new league. Yet, the team they have drafted so far might be one of the worst of all teams that have been rumored.

Froggen departs ECHO FOX

The reason I saw something so harsh is that they went from having a mid-laner like Froggen to picking up Fenix, a player that hasn’t been around since his time on Team Liquid, prior to TL finishing at the bottom, and was never considered the star of the team back then. Couple that with an egocentric jungler like Dardoch, who is known to tilt very easily when behind, and a support that was kicked off a team due to his behavior, Adrian, it is hard to feel that this team will thrive this year.

Two things still hang in the air on whether FOX can actually succeed, despite their choice in players thus far. The first is which Altec will be playing for FOX. Is it going to be Altec of Evil Geniuses and NRG or will it be the Altec from 2017 Spring Flyquest? He is well known for being a consistent player, but this team needs to have someone that they can rely on outside of simply Dardoch, especially if Dardoch finds himself in a spot where he is losing to his opponent. This could simply be solved with the other question mark of FOX, their top-laner. With many rumors around who it could be, FOX need to draft one of the best tops in the World if they want to be considered anywhere close to viable as a team in 2018.