With the advent of franchising the North American LCS has gone haywire. Every off-season teams scramble to secure the players they think will serve them best in the coming season. With the injection of big money backers and security from relegations, never has this been truer.

In this time fans have been waiting in apprehension to hear what moves their favourite teams are making, or to where their favourite players will now be homed. As such debate in this time period is common. Some fans are upset and some are excited but all are speculative about how changes will affect the state of the league. In this time a phrase is often bandied around, ‘winning the off-season’. Where fans and pundits alike give their opinion on who has made the smartest choices for the coming year. I believe this year; Team Liquid has won the off-season.

This does not mean I necessarily think Liquid has the strongest roster. That may well be Team Solo Mid. However if you consider that one of these teams wins nearly every season and the other has been in relegations twice over the last two years, to even be in contention for a top spot is a sign of seriously good roster moves. Not only do I think Liquid has acquired an upgrade in every single role, it’s also already a proven formula.

Acquiring Immortals – Solid Foundations

Four out of five members of the roster were NA LCS Summer finalists and all five went to Worlds. On paper this roster is already; just based on individuals, one of the strongest in the league.

However when you put together a new roster, there are many intangibles. Even if you get the best individuals available in every role there is no guarantee they will work well as a unit. Who would have predicted anything but domination for the Yellowstar iteration of Team Solo Mid?

Liquid then is already off to an advantage. Salvaging three of the five members of last year’s runner up roster, we know that Xmithie, Pobelter and Olleh can already play together and play together well. This is especially important when you consider the roles of these players. If there are two roles I want to know my jungler can work with, it’s mid and support.

Jungle/support is essential for a team to have solid macro. Together able to invade and secure vision in places that would be unsafe to ward alone – vision control is crucial at every point in the game. Early, solid river control allows for easier roams both to and from the mid lane. It allows your jungler to make more informed moves based on tracking his opponent and it keeps your lanes safe. We all know how paramount vision control is for securing neutral objectives, early drakes can put you in good stead to win the entire game and either securing or baiting baron can end you the game.

Then there’s mid, often referred to as the second duo lane. If the jungler is the most flexible player on the team, in regards to what decisions he can make to impact the map. Mid is definitely second. As the spine of the team, it is essential your mid lane is strong. A mid with advantage can roam to assist any part of the map, or secure the enemy mid turret. When the enemy turret falls mid, a team gains a huge advantage. It opens up the enemy jungle and allows you to secure increasingly deep vision control. By denying the enemy vision on their own half of the map, you can dance between turrets forcing rotations that will either be too slow and netting a turret or too dangerous and killing your opponent.

None of this can be achieved if your mid and jungle do not work in tandem. Jungle position dictates how aggressive the mid laner should play. Likewise mid priority dictates how safe invading the enemy jungle is. Whilst Pobelter may not necessarily be Xmithie’s focal point, the two have shown they work well together playing in accordance with what the other wants to do and roaming to the side lanes as a unit.

A Strong Identity

Alongside rookie AD carry Cody Sun, Olleh was able to elevate himself to a place where most considered him the strongest support in North America. Now he will be laning alongside Doublelift, who has long been considered the best ADC in the region. It’s undeniable that this roster has a lot of star power coming out of its bot lane, but is also probably the biggest question mark on the roster. Will these players synergise? Known for his roaming and play making, Olleh in many ways mirrors an on form Aphromoo and we all know that Rush Hour was an incredible laning force. If he can switch to a slightly more laning focused style this roster should be an even stronger version of last years Immortals.

We know Doublelift makes a strong backline with Pobelter, they can work together. This team whilst three fifths IMT, is also three fifths Counter Logic Gaming’s 2015 championship roster. It is probably the most known quantity roster going into next year and should be a real contender.

The final piece of this puzzle is former World Champion and renowned tank player, Impact. Whilst he hasn’t played with any aspect of this roster before, the beauty of Impact is he demands nothing in terms of resources. If left alone he’ll get by, absorb pressure and always be relevant in team fights. Anything you do give him, he’ll pay you back for ten fold come mid to late game. Whilst it’d be disingenuous to ignore his slumping period on C9, never has he failed to step it up when it really mattered.

Together, this roster has clear strengths. Neither solo laner demands much in terms of jungle attention and is happy to make sacrifices to help the team. Both are able to stand up to the incredibly stacked players that share their positions on other teams. Xmithie has in the last year proved himself perhaps the greatest jungler in North America and certainly ranks amongst the smartest. He’s a shot caller with a very strong idea of what to do in the early game, reliably winning his team advantages game after game.

Finally we have the Doublelift/Olleh bot lane. This duo has the potential to be the strongest laning force in North America. On a roster of flexible team players, this is your point of pressure. No longer sharing the spot light with Hauntzer and Bjergsen, much of the carry responsibility now falls to Doublelift. With less resource hungry team-mates, it’s likely that Doublelift will be enabled to play to his natural tendencies. Namely a desire to smash lane.

I can see this roster being a bot-centric team. Constantly pressuring bot lane, forcing opponents to fight for every CS and acquiring leads in a way that demands a response. With smart warding and a good early game understanding, things Xmithie has in spades – I expect to see a lot of five man fights in the bot lane and teams losing their tower early. From there, Doublelift and Olleh can rotate around the map with a lead, knocking down tower after tower or forcing the team to take the fight to them. A style some may recognise as reminiscent of Forg1ven era H2K.

Conclusion

I believe Team Liquid has finally utilised Steve’s bottomless wallet to put together a roster that should place in the top two. Anything short of Worlds should be considered a failure. On paper this roster is stronger than Cloud 9 or Counter Logic Gaming. It has clear role players; it has at least two players capable of shot calling.

There are only two concerns I have. One is meta, if the highly aggressive junglers are meta, Lee Sin, Nidalee and Kha’zix then I believe there are potentially stronger mechanical players in the league than Xmithie. Likewise, if the bot lane shifts toward a utility carry style like we saw early in the series with heavy emphasis on Ashe, Jhin and Varus – this could also potentially hurt Doublelift’s ability to carry.

The other is infrastructure. Over the years Liquid has had its share of great players and done very little with them. It has not always used its resources wisely and one has to question how big a role in house decision making and coaching has played. Fortunately this roster has a lot of innate strength and experience. However, a poor coaching staff could mean that as the year presses on other teams find edges over Liquid and they fail to meet their potential.