nelsonsng Profile Joined January 2015 Singapore 35 Posts Last Edited: 2015-03-18 15:42:39 March 18 2015 15:37 GMT #1



As majority of the world has their sights fixed on IEM Katowice this weekend, the Garena Premier League (GPL) has been constantly running in the background. With little to no information about the South East Asian scene being made public, I will try to shed some light on this reclusive regions which has recently been demoted into a wild card region.

These GPL teams will be looking to sweep the International Wild Card Qualifiers this year, and hopefully be reinstated as one of the major regions in competitive League of Legends



This week, after having consulted a number of experts, casters & coaches from the different GPL teams, these rankings would account the strength of the 8 GPL teams and how they would perform relative to each other.



Without further ado, here we go!







8. Hanoi Full Louis







Oh how the mighty have fallen. Full Louis used to perfectly represent the Vietnamese region.Having mastered aggressive play combined with having the most mechanically gifted Vietnamese player in SofM. HFL were once a top 4 team in the Garena Premier League even back when the Taiwanese were still here. They reached the Semifinals of the GPL Summer 2014 playoffs, smashing middle of the pack team, Logitech Snipers.Unfortunately, they were unable to proceed due to being disqualified because of the dubious nature of their players documentation.



This season however, has not been a smooth ride for Full Louis. They were not able to start with two of their star prodigies, Jeff and SofM, resulting in numerous role swaps and subpar results. In the start of 2015, the team looked like they have adapted without having their two star carries, as their results started improving . However, with Jeff & SofM being unbanned shortly after the turn of the year, their team decided to reinstate both players to the starting lineup, with mixed results.



At the moment, they sit at the bottom of Group A of the GPL Phase 2, losing to 269 Gaming, who are considered a bottom tier team in Vietnam. Their other result was an acceptable draw against the Bangkok Titans, one of the favourites to win the GPL.



Unless Full Louis start to step up their strategy and stop relying on pure mechanics to win games, they will most likely fail to advance to the knockout stages, a disappointing end for one of the stalwarts of the Vietnamese scene.







7. Zotac 269







A relatively new comer to the Vietnamese scene, Zotac 269 barely scraped into the GPL via the Vietnamese qualifiers. With a good amount of luck, Zotac 269 was rolled into the easiest possible group for GPL Spring 2015 Phase 1, competing with eternal bottom feeders, Kuala Lumpur Hunters, the 2nd placed team in Malaysia, KTHXBAI, and Singaporean giants, Insidious Gaming Legends. After struggling initially against KLH, Zotac 269 romped past the bottom 2 Malaysian teams, gaining 11 out of the maximum 18 points.



Although Zotac 269 have struggled in the VCS A (Vietnamese equivalent of the LCS), they have recently posted decent results in the GPL. With a win of Hanoi Full Louis and surprise package An Phat Ultimate, they sit atop of Group A with a 2 point lead.



Even with good results in the previous week, Zotac 269 will not be expected to advance to the knock out phase of the competition. They are a new team who are unable to close out games with a gold lead against good teams and having mechanically weak laners do not help their cause.





All things considered, this has been an amazing debut season for Zotac 269, and not making it out of the 2nd Group Stage would not tarnish the achievements for this rookie team.





6. Asus Fate Team







Asus Fate is another rookie Vietnamese team making their debut appearance in the GPL. They have however, performed admirably in their local league, with a 65% win rate. They were in a relatively straightforward group, with 2 Filipino teams and the Bangkok Titans, a team on the rise after years of development. They decisively sweeped the 4 matches against the Wargods teams, only to lose 2 matches against Bangkok Titans. The matches against Bangkok Titans have shown that Asus Fate was still a step behind the top tier GPL teams, and would have work to do to realistically get to the knockout stages.



Asus Fate usually favours poke/disengage teamcomps, which will force uncoordinated & inexperienced teams to engage in disadvantageous situations. Against more seasoned teams, Asus Fate struggled to close out games, frequently throwing huge leads due to suspect shotcalling and vision control. The matches against SF5 and SAJ last week clearly highlighted their strengths and weakness as a team. They have an incredible early game as their jungler, MeoU is probably the best Lee Sin in the country. However, due to their suspect shotcalling and lack of understanding of power spikes, they have a tendency to throw their leads, which can be seen in their first match against Saigon Fantastic Five & their second game against Saigon Jokers.



As one of the darkhorses of the tournament, Asus Fate will have to perform out of their minds to advance past the 2nd group stage, as they are placed in the Group of Death. Having 3 other teams which are favoured to win the GPL in their group, this will be a real test of their mettle, and they will have to prove their doubters wrong by performing against the big teams.







5. An Phat Ultimate







Sitting at 5th spot in the Vietnamese LCS, An Phat Ultimate is a professional Vietnamese team sponsored by a Vietnamese PC company. They have been one of the biggest over achievers in the current iteration of the GPL. Having an extremely tricky initial group stage consisting of Mineski & Saigon Fantastic Five, APU were not expected to triumph over the Filipino veterans, or even challenge the Kings of Vietnam, SF5. So far, they have exceeded all expectations handing SF5 their only BO2 loss so far, and outsmarting Mineski in each of their meetings.



An Phat Ultimate seems to be a team which is capable of playing numerous strategies, being able to outplan and out maneuver their opponents on Summoners Rift. In the past week, they have drawn both matches against Zotac 269 & Bangkok Titans, with the former being a disappointing result.



Due to their over-achievement in the first group stage and placing 1st ahead of Saigon Fantastic Five, they have been rewarded with an easy group in the second round. Will An Phat Ultimate be able to capitalize on their chances and achieve a top 4 finish in their debut season? Only time will tell.





4. Saigon Jokers







Saigon Jokers, a familiar name for League of Legends fans who have watched the Season 2 World Championships. SAJ is the most well known GPL team in the western region and the most supported team in Vietnam. They have occasionally qualifying for major international events and most recently, IEM Taipei. They are the pioneers of the Vietnamese skirmish intensive playstyle, where teams would fight in small groups all the time, accumulating advantages all over the map. They are most known for taking a game of Dignitas in the S2WC, relegating Scarra & Co. to last place.



Three Seasons later, the only member from their S2WC roster who remained is Nixwater, who has moved to Top lane after uninspiring performances in the mid lane in the later seasons. Although they have a good record in the Vietnamese LCS, they have struggled in the recent weeks, dropping games against bottom tier Vietnamese teams and were lucky to scrape two draws after a humongous throw by Insidious Gaming Legends and getting a lucky break against Asus Fate in Game 2.



Saigon Jokers will need to work hard to rediscover their top form, which enabled them to sweep the IEM Taipei Qualifiers. Their key player would be Safety, who is able to single handedly carry SAJ from the jungle. However, he can be shut down easily by taking away four of his best jungle champions



If SAJ do not buck up and get out of their slump, they will run risk of failing to qualify for the next stage and further disappoint their massive fan base.





3. Insidious Gaming Legends







After getting smashed 0-3 in the Legend Circuit Finals (Singapore/Malaysia equivalent to the LCS) by an up & coming amateur team, IGL have been dismissed by local fans as being past their best and most of their players being labelled as washed up. The team displayed unmotivated and lackluster performances in the following matches after the finals. IGL was then on the verge of breaking down and completely stopped scrimming as a team prior to the next major local tournament.

In a surprising change of events, Insidious Gaming Legends managed to clean sweep and exact revenge against the very opponents who had trounced them in the Legend Circuit Finals. With new found motivation and an aim to qualify for the season end World Championships, IGL are starting to look like a real contender to claim the title of Kings of SEA.



Insidious Gaming Legends are one of the few teams in the GPL who are able to execute different team compositions to great success. They are able to utilize simple Area Of Effect team-fight compositions or a more macro-intensive poke/pick composition. Their only flaws, are a suspect ban phase & being extremely indecisive with their late game shotcalling, resulting in throws in the second group stage against SAJ & SF5.



With arguably the most mechanically skilled players in almost all of their roles, they are genuinely the only team in the GPL which has 5 players who can single-handedly carry games. There have also been rumors that IGL have been able to amass huge gold leads in scrims against the top Taiwanese LMS teams, only to throw the win away once it reaches the late game. If IGL manages to shore up their late game shakiness, they would be the SEA region's biggest hope in performing at international LANs.





2. Bangkok Titans







Bangkok Titans were previously known to be a bottom feeder team back when the Taiwanese still competed in the GPL. They have been swapping players regularly every season, with a new lineup appearing in every season of the GPL. After years of being in “development”, it looks like Bangkok Titans has finally found a stable roster, one that is considered to be part of the elite in South East Asia.



At the end of 2014, Bangkok Titans exploded into the SEA scene, with G4 standing out as one of the best mid laners in the GPL. Give G4 any of his favoured assassin mid laners, and he will single-handedly win the game for Bangkok Titans. From December 2014 to January 2015, BKT has dominated almost all their opponents with ease, both locally and internationally. With G4’s stock rising tremendously, he has been touted as the best mid lane talent in the GPL, and the best Thai player to have ever played the game. He was even being compared to the top mid laners in Taiwan such as Maple ,Toyz & Chawy!



Even so, Bangkok Titan’s biggest strength is also their biggest weakness. Recently, BKT’s performance suffered a slight dip, with an extremely rare loss in their local league and subpar performance in the GPL 2nd group stage. This was due to the recent patch changes, which removed assassins such as Kassadin from viability, which allowed teams to target ban 3 different assassin champions and force G4 into a more supportive mid champion.



For Bangkok Titans to reach their full potential, the other members would need to step out of their comfort zones, and relieve the pressure of carrying of G4. Even though G4 might be a superb player, he is not able to carry every single game, especially if he gets banned out.





1.Saigon Fantastic Five







Whipping boys no more, Saigon Fantastic Five are now considered to be THE favorite to lift the GPL Spring 2015. With an insane 24-1 record in the Vietnamese Championship series, they are the GPL’s equivalent of the GE Tigers. Having shown tactical flexibility with differing playstyle from each match, Saigon Fantastic Five are a force to be reckoned with in the South East Asia scene. Their meteoric rise to the top all started in GPL Summer, where they placed top 4, only behind the top Taiwanese teams. With the Taiwanese teams leaving the GPL to form the LMS, Saigon Fantastic Five are the clear favourites to sweep the competition.



Saigon Fantastic Five have three main team compositions which they are able to pull out optimally. Their first strategy revolves around picking double AP Champions and a scaling AD Carry such as Vayne or Kalista. They would round of the team composition with a support which would be able to provide some crowd control to peel for their hyper carry. With this team comp, SF5 would take advantage of the level 6 & the mid-game power spikes of their composition, securing various objectives around the map. If they are not able to snowball a lead in the first 15 minutes, they would still have a backup plan, with Minas on a hyper carry which would be able to deal tons of damage in teamfights.

Their second strategy is a poke/kite/disengage composition, where Ezreal Corki & Janna being the core components of their team. SF5 would constantly use Ezreal's Trueshot Barrage to manipulate creep waves to create a slow push on the side lanes, using the opportunity to obtain vision, make picks or getting objectives.

Lastly, they have also used the JuggerMaw composition (Made famous by the GE Tigers). They have yet to pull out this strategy in the GPL though.



Currently, Saigon Fantastic Five are the leaders of Group A, with a good win over Asus Fate, and a draw against Insidious Gaming Legends. Both of the first games against Asus Fate & Insidious Gaming Legends were won SF5 as they showed grit & fighting spirit to claw back from a large gold deficit to secure the win. SF5 might be the best SEA team, but they are not without weakness, as Insidious Gaming have proven by annihilating SF5 in the early game in the BO2, converting the second match into a win. If SF5 manage to stabilize their early weaknesses, they are a shoe-in to win this GPL Championship.









Photo Credits: Garena, Saigon Jokers, An Phat Ultimate, Saigon Fantastic Five, Sheeptrilogy, Fate Team, Bangkok Titans,Full Louis & 269 Gaming As majority of the world has their sights fixed on IEM Katowice this weekend, the Garena Premier League (GPL) has been constantly running in the background. With little to no information about the South East Asian scene being made public, I will try to shed some light on this reclusive regions which has recently been demoted into a wild card region.These GPL teams will be looking to sweep the International Wild Card Qualifiers this year, and hopefully be reinstated as one of the major regions in competitive League of LegendsThis week, after having consulted a number of experts, casters & coaches from the different GPL teams, these rankings would account the strength of the 8 GPL teams and how they would perform relative to each other.Without further ado, here we go!Oh how the mighty have fallen. Full Louis used to perfectly represent the Vietnamese region.Having mastered aggressive play combined with having the most mechanically gifted Vietnamese player in SofM. HFL were once a top 4 team in the Garena Premier League even back when the Taiwanese were still here. They reached the Semifinals of the GPL Summer 2014 playoffs, smashing middle of the pack team, Logitech Snipers.Unfortunately, they were unable to proceed due to being disqualified because of the dubious nature of their players documentation.This season however, has not been a smooth ride for Full Louis. They were not able to start with two of their star prodigies, Jeff and SofM, resulting in numerous role swaps and subpar results. In the start of 2015, the team looked like they have adapted without having their two star carries, as their results started improving . However, with Jeff & SofM being unbanned shortly after the turn of the year, their team decided to reinstate both players to the starting lineup, with mixed results.At the moment, they sit at the bottom of Group A of the GPL Phase 2, losing to 269 Gaming, who are considered a bottom tier team in Vietnam. Their other result was an acceptable draw against the Bangkok Titans, one of the favourites to win the GPL.Unless Full Louis start to step up their strategy and stop relying on pure mechanics to win games, they will most likely fail to advance to the knockout stages, a disappointing end for one of the stalwarts of the Vietnamese scene.A relatively new comer to the Vietnamese scene, Zotac 269 barely scraped into the GPL via the Vietnamese qualifiers. With a good amount of luck, Zotac 269 was rolled into the easiest possible group for GPL Spring 2015 Phase 1, competing with eternal bottom feeders, Kuala Lumpur Hunters, the 2nd placed team in Malaysia, KTHXBAI, and Singaporean giants, Insidious Gaming Legends. After struggling initially against KLH, Zotac 269 romped past the bottom 2 Malaysian teams, gaining 11 out of the maximum 18 points.Although Zotac 269 have struggled in the VCS A (Vietnamese equivalent of the LCS), they have recently posted decent results in the GPL. With a win of Hanoi Full Louis and surprise package An Phat Ultimate, they sit atop of Group A with a 2 point lead.Even with good results in the previous week, Zotac 269 will not be expected to advance to the knock out phase of the competition. They are a new team who are unable to close out games with a gold lead against good teams and having mechanically weak laners do not help their cause.All things considered, this has been an amazing debut season for Zotac 269, and not making it out of the 2nd Group Stage would not tarnish the achievements for this rookie team.Asus Fate is another rookie Vietnamese team making their debut appearance in the GPL. They have however, performed admirably in their local league, with a 65% win rate. They were in a relatively straightforward group, with 2 Filipino teams and the Bangkok Titans, a team on the rise after years of development. They decisively sweeped the 4 matches against the Wargods teams, only to lose 2 matches against Bangkok Titans. The matches against Bangkok Titans have shown that Asus Fate was still a step behind the top tier GPL teams, and would have work to do to realistically get to the knockout stages.Asus Fate usually favours poke/disengage teamcomps, which will force uncoordinated & inexperienced teams to engage in disadvantageous situations. Against more seasoned teams, Asus Fate struggled to close out games, frequently throwing huge leads due to suspect shotcalling and vision control. The matches against SF5 and SAJ last week clearly highlighted their strengths and weakness as a team. They have an incredible early game as their jungler, MeoU is probably the best Lee Sin in the country. However, due to their suspect shotcalling and lack of understanding of power spikes, they have a tendency to throw their leads, which can be seen in their first match against Saigon Fantastic Five & their second game against Saigon Jokers.As one of the darkhorses of the tournament, Asus Fate will have to perform out of their minds to advance past the 2nd group stage, as they are placed in the Group of Death. Having 3 other teams which are favoured to win the GPL in their group, this will be a real test of their mettle, and they will have to prove their doubters wrong by performing against the big teams.Sitting at 5th spot in the Vietnamese LCS, An Phat Ultimate is a professional Vietnamese team sponsored by a Vietnamese PC company. They have been one of the biggest over achievers in the current iteration of the GPL. Having an extremely tricky initial group stage consisting of Mineski & Saigon Fantastic Five, APU were not expected to triumph over the Filipino veterans, or even challenge the Kings of Vietnam, SF5. So far, they have exceeded all expectations handing SF5 their only BO2 loss so far, and outsmarting Mineski in each of their meetings.An Phat Ultimate seems to be a team which is capable of playing numerous strategies, being able to outplan and out maneuver their opponents on Summoners Rift. In the past week, they have drawn both matches against Zotac 269 & Bangkok Titans, with the former being a disappointing result.Due to their over-achievement in the first group stage and placing 1st ahead of Saigon Fantastic Five, they have been rewarded with an easy group in the second round. Will An Phat Ultimate be able to capitalize on their chances and achieve a top 4 finish in their debut season? Only time will tell.Saigon Jokers, a familiar name for League of Legends fans who have watched the Season 2 World Championships. SAJ is the most well known GPL team in the western region and the most supported team in Vietnam. They have occasionally qualifying for major international events and most recently, IEM Taipei. They are the pioneers of the Vietnamese skirmish intensive playstyle, where teams would fight in small groups all the time, accumulating advantages all over the map. They are most known for taking a game of Dignitas in the S2WC, relegating Scarra & Co. to last place.Three Seasons later, the only member from their S2WC roster who remained is Nixwater, who has moved to Top lane after uninspiring performances in the mid lane in the later seasons. Although they have a good record in the Vietnamese LCS, they have struggled in the recent weeks, dropping games against bottom tier Vietnamese teams and were lucky to scrape two draws after a humongous throw by Insidious Gaming Legends and getting a lucky break against Asus Fate in Game 2.Saigon Jokers will need to work hard to rediscover their top form, which enabled them to sweep the IEM Taipei Qualifiers. Their key player would be Safety, who is able to single handedly carry SAJ from the jungle. However, he can be shut down easily by taking away four of his best jungle championsIf SAJ do not buck up and get out of their slump, they will run risk of failing to qualify for the next stage and further disappoint their massive fan base.After getting smashed 0-3 in the Legend Circuit Finals (Singapore/Malaysia equivalent to the LCS) by an up & coming amateur team, IGL have been dismissed by local fans as being past their best and most of their players being labelled as washed up. The team displayed unmotivated and lackluster performances in the following matches after the finals. IGL was then on the verge of breaking down and completely stopped scrimming as a team prior to the next major local tournament.In a surprising change of events, Insidious Gaming Legends managed to clean sweep and exact revenge against the very opponents who had trounced them in the Legend Circuit Finals. With new found motivation and an aim to qualify for the season end World Championships, IGL are starting to look like a real contender to claim the title of Kings of SEA.Insidious Gaming Legends are one of the few teams in the GPL who are able to execute different team compositions to great success. They are able to utilize simple Area Of Effect team-fight compositions or a more macro-intensive poke/pick composition. Their only flaws, are a suspect ban phase & being extremely indecisive with their late game shotcalling, resulting in throws in the second group stage against SAJ & SF5.With arguably the most mechanically skilled players in almost all of their roles, they are genuinely the only team in the GPL which has 5 players who can single-handedly carry games. There have also been rumors that IGL have been able to amass huge gold leads in scrims against the top Taiwanese LMS teams, only to throw the win away once it reaches the late game. If IGL manages to shore up their late game shakiness, they would be the SEA region's biggest hope in performing at international LANs.Bangkok Titans were previously known to be a bottom feeder team back when the Taiwanese still competed in the GPL. They have been swapping players regularly every season, with a new lineup appearing in every season of the GPL. After years of being in “development”, it looks like Bangkok Titans has finally found a stable roster, one that is considered to be part of the elite in South East Asia.At the end of 2014, Bangkok Titans exploded into the SEA scene, with G4 standing out as one of the best mid laners in the GPL. Give G4 any of his favoured assassin mid laners, and he will single-handedly win the game for Bangkok Titans. From December 2014 to January 2015, BKT has dominated almost all their opponents with ease, both locally and internationally. With G4’s stock rising tremendously, he has been touted as the best mid lane talent in the GPL, and the best Thai player to have ever played the game. He was even being compared to the top mid laners in Taiwan such as Maple ,Toyz & Chawy!Even so, Bangkok Titan’s biggest strength is also their biggest weakness. Recently, BKT’s performance suffered a slight dip, with an extremely rare loss in their local league and subpar performance in the GPL 2nd group stage. This was due to the recent patch changes, which removed assassins such as Kassadin from viability, which allowed teams to target ban 3 different assassin champions and force G4 into a more supportive mid champion.For Bangkok Titans to reach their full potential, the other members would need to step out of their comfort zones, and relieve the pressure of carrying of G4. Even though G4 might be a superb player, he is not able to carry every single game, especially if he gets banned out.Whipping boys no more, Saigon Fantastic Five are now considered to befavorite to lift the GPL Spring 2015. With an insane 24-1 record in the Vietnamese Championship series, they are the GPL’s equivalent of the GE Tigers. Having shown tactical flexibility with differing playstyle from each match, Saigon Fantastic Five are a force to be reckoned with in the South East Asia scene. Their meteoric rise to the top all started in GPL Summer, where they placed top 4, only behind the top Taiwanese teams. With the Taiwanese teams leaving the GPL to form the LMS, Saigon Fantastic Five are the clear favourites to sweep the competition.Saigon Fantastic Five have three main team compositions which they are able to pull out optimally. Their first strategy revolves around picking double AP Champions and a scaling AD Carry such as Vayne or Kalista. They would round of the team composition with a support which would be able to provide some crowd control to peel for their hyper carry. With this team comp, SF5 would take advantage of the level 6 & the mid-game power spikes of their composition, securing various objectives around the map. If they are not able to snowball a lead in the first 15 minutes, they would still have a backup plan, with Minas on a hyper carry which would be able to deal tons of damage in teamfights.Their second strategy is a poke/kite/disengage composition, where Ezreal Corki & Janna being the core components of their team. SF5 would constantly use Ezreal's Trueshot Barrage to manipulate creep waves to create a slow push on the side lanes, using the opportunity to obtain vision, make picks or getting objectives.Lastly, they have also used the JuggerMaw composition (Made famous by the GE Tigers). They have yet to pull out this strategy in the GPL though.Currently, Saigon Fantastic Five are the leaders of Group A, with a good win over Asus Fate, and a draw against Insidious Gaming Legends. Both of the first games against Asus Fate & Insidious Gaming Legends were won SF5 as they showed grit & fighting spirit to claw back from a large gold deficit to secure the win. SF5 might be the best SEA team, but they are not without weakness, as Insidious Gaming have proven by annihilating SF5 in the early game in the BO2, converting the second match into a win. If SF5 manage to stabilize their early weaknesses, they are a shoe-in to win this GPL Championship.Photo Credits: Garena, Saigon Jokers, An Phat Ultimate, Saigon Fantastic Five, Sheeptrilogy, Fate Team, Bangkok Titans,Full Louis & 269 Gaming Writer for LoLeSports & LL Twitter: https://twitter.com/nelson_sng