Cloth 5 is bringing you everything you need to know to catch up on the competition coming into the 2014 Summer Split of the North American League of Legends Championship Series. Today we feature the new addition of compLexity to the NA LCS. A long time coming for many of the players on compLexity’s roster, the birth into the LCS marks the first return of the compLexity brand since the 2013 Spring Split in North America. But how did compLexity make it’s return to the LCS? Who are the faces behind the summoner names? What are their chances for the upcoming split? I will aim to answer all of that and more in the following preview for compLexity.

Challenger Series Performance

While the current roster for compLexity has been active since early January of 2014, the core of the team has been around since early 2013, with Westrice being the longest current-standing member. Early in 2013, FXOpen eSports put together a team of players that included current members Westrice and ROBERTxLEE. About halfway through 2013, FXOpen decided to part ways with the team, and they rebranded themselves with the name ‘To Be Determined.’ The team wouldn’t change again until October when Brokenshard and Bubbadub joined the team to attempt qualification for the LCS in the 2014 Spring Promotion Tournament. After they were soundly defeated by Evil Geniuses with a score of 3-0, they announced the departure of Arthelon and the acquisition of former compLexity mid lane player PR0LLY.

Following PR0LLY joining the team, they were scheduled to begin playing in NACL Season 2 and NACS #1 within the next month, so there wasn’t much time for adjustment. Despite their potential struggle with synergy, the team seemed to be performing well, and by Week 3 of NACL, they held a positive record of 9-4 – picking up wins against the favorite LMQ and Team 8. compLexity finished the NACL regular season in third place within the Ancient Golem Conference, but would unfortunately come up short the following week against a surging Cloud 9 Tempest team. Despite a lackluster performance in the NACL playoffs, compLexity had solidified themselves as a top contender for an LCS play-in slot.

The combined Determined Gaming/compLexity Black roster took 4 straight games in the NACS #1 leading up to the final against LMQ. After dropping the finals to LMQ, they finished NACS #1 with a respectable 7 points and a near guaranteed spot in the NACS playoffs later in the spring. Those extra points proved to be very valuable as compLexity was forced to forfeit their round 1 match-up with Cloud 9 Tempest in the second Challenger Series after some issues with the tournament realm client. So after their small stumble, they landed the third seed into the playoffs. After a team kill and a loss to the aforementioned Cloud 9 Tempest, they were in one more Best of Five match for their shot at the LCS. In a series that went to the fifth and final game, it was compLexity that came out on top and would be chosen first in taking out Team Coast, sending them to relegation.

The current roster holds an all time record of 29-18 against opponents since acquiring PR0LLY, for a win rate of 62% entering the NA LCS Summer Split. However, they have lost 4 out of 5 meetings against LMQ, the other team to qualify from the NA Challenger Series, and it remains to be seen how they will fare against more experienced teams in the Summer Split.

Meet The Team

Jon “Westrice” Nguyen – Top

Perhaps the most recognizable name on the compLexity roster, Jonathan “Westrice” Nguyen has been a part of competitive League of Legends since its inception in 2011. He was originally a part of team Epik Gamer, which placed 4th at the League of Legends Season 1 World Championships. Following Epik Gamer, Westrice found a home on Curse Gaming, replacing current Evil Geniuses mid laner Pobelter, as he was too young to move into a gaming house at the time. Following a short stint with Curse, after failing to qualify for the Season 2 World Championship and the NA LCS, Westrice was benched in favor of former CLG top laner Voyboy.

This began the current run for Westrice as the longest standing member of CompLexity. After again failing to qualify for NA LCS Spring Split with the reformed Epik Gamer, he joined FXOpen – After a slew of roster changes and team name changes, he is the only remaining member from the FXOpen team. He tends to gravitate towards carry style top laners like Lee Sin, Riven, and his famed Akali. Part of the team’s potential struggle during their qualification for the Spring Split was due to Westrice’s inability to adjust to the tanky top lane meta. Westrice has played in 3 of 4 LCS qualifiers and for him, the third time seems to be the charm.

Neil “pr0lly” Hammad – Mid

Currently the only player with existing experience playing within the LCS, Neil “PR0LLY” Hammad is the current mid lane player for compLexity Gaming. He spent the better part 2012 and early 2013 competing in several offline tournaments, like MLG, with a variety of teams. He previously played for compLexity during the Spring Season of last year’s NA LCS, also as their mid laner. However, it wasn’t until about halfway through the season that PR0LLY was brought in to replace Chuuper, and by that point, compLexity was already at risk of relegation. Following their defeat in relegations to Cloud 9 (then Quantic), PR0LLY returned to school and rejoined the competitive scene on January 3rd of this year playing for Determined Gaming.

He has shown proficiency on a variety of different champions, but seems to be more comfortable on standard mage picks rather than assassins, with good performances on both Ziggs and Orianna. With the meta still very wide open in terms of effective mid lane champion picks, PR0LLY should have no trouble finding champions to play in whatever team composition CompLexity brew up.

Ram “Brokenshard” Djemal – Jungle

Ram “Brokenshard” Djemal has bounced around the amateur and competitive scene since early in 2012. He was a substitute member and coach of Dragonborns during their run in the EU LCS Spring Spring Split in Season 3. Brokenshard joined Determined Gaming in October of 2013 after heavenTime stepped down from the roster. He is the most recent import from Europe to qualify for the NA LCS. His jungling was stated to be instrumental in their success against Coast in the recent promotion tournament. Brokenshard has stated that his favorite champion is Lee Sin, but he also seems to feel comfortable on other junglers with high early game impact, like Vi, and more recently, Elise. He may see continued success with that style of play moving into the LCS as the jungler currently has an integral role in the success of a team’s early game and ability to snowball.

Robert “ROBERTxLEE” Lee – AD Carry

Known for being a solo queue all-star, Robert “ROBERTxLEE” Lee has also been playing as part of the Determined Gaming/compLexity legacy squad since FXOpen back in March of 2013. After he was banned from competing in the qualifiers for the NA LCS Spring Split in 2013 due to an incident with ghosting, he returned to school and rejoined the competitive scene as the AD Carry for FXOpen. Shortly before joining FXO, he had an accident where he fell down a set of stairs and developed amnesia – forgetting things from the last 5-6 years of his life. He almost gave up on competing competitively, but his parents encouraged him to continue playing.

He has had as many as three accounts in Challenger simultaneously, along with numerous other Diamond tier smurfs. For a long time, Robert was considered to be the top ADC in North America who was not in the LCS. He has historically performed well on Caitlyn and Ezreal – the more “safe” attack damage champions, but he was also one of the first players to pick up Draven during the height of Draven’s popularity in 2013. With multiple accounts at the top level of play, it should come as no surprise that Robert is proficient with almost any ADC in the current viable pool.

Royce “Bubbadub” Newcomb – Support

The infamous one year gamble paid off for Royce “Bubbadub” Newcomb, as he made a bet with his wife that he could make it as a pro within six months. After failing to qualify with Determined Gaming for the Season 4 NA LCS Spring Split, he still had enough of a fan base to try in one more split. Bubbadub is the player with the least competitive experience on the compLexity roster, but it doesn’t show in his play. He is most famous for playing Lulu, and even wearing a Lulu hat at competitions. He tends to perform better on more passive supports, but has not shied away from aggressive ones during this heavily dominated support-engage meta. The man with a mustache to rival Braum has made it into the LCS within his one year time frame and will move into the house with the team during the Summer Split.

Summer Split Predictions

One of compLexity’s strengths lies in their ability to quickly adapt to the metagame. They were the first team in North America to adopt the Korean 4v1 split push strategy on patch 4.5. PR0LLY, ROBERTxLEE and Brokenshard’s champion pools are large enough to adapt to change as well. The other advantage compLexity has over some other LCS teams is in their roster synergy. They have been playing as a 5-man unit for nearly five months now, and as a 4-man group since October of last year. Being comfortable playing with your teammates is a luxury that not all LCS teams have been able to ascertain over the last year and a half with constantly changing rosters.

compLexity’s biggest weakness is quite obviously, lack of LCS experience. Despite most of their players being well experienced in an offline environment, there are some things that can only be learned at an LCS level of play. The most recent example that comes to mind is goldenglue for Team Dignitas getting flash/ignite all-in’ed at level 2. There are some things that can only be experienced first hand in a high pressure setting like the LCS. Another weakness for compLexity may come from the hands of Westrice. Westrice struggles in similar areas as ZionSpartan in thinking that he must carry his team to victory each and every game. He also tends to be an emotional player that sometimes has the potential to tilt easier than others. He finally got his shot at the LCS, so let’s hope he uses it well.

Despite their respectable record in the Challenger scene this split, coL most assuredly has a long way to go before they can compete at the top of the NA LCS. A 3-1 victory over Coast should be taken with a grain of salt as Coast was definitely the most inconsistent team throughout the Spring Split. The only other team in the LCS they have experience playing outside of scrims is LMQ, which as previously mentioned, they hold a lousy record of 1-4 against. While the immediate outlook doesn’t look promising for a top finish in the LCS, Super Week will sure tell us the caliber of competition compLexity are for other teams in the LCS this split. Unfortunately, I find it hard to believe that CompLexity will find themselves safe from relegation at the end of the Summer Split.