#1: Team Solo Mid

Top: Hauntzer – Jungle: MikeYeung – Mid: Bjergsen – ADC: Zven – Support: Mithy – Coach: SSong

Both the undisputed kings of North America and an international laughing stock. Winning the region is no longer the goal, it’s the standard, and anything less will be considered a failure for this roster. Reginald hopes to have resolved long standing communication and infrastructure issues by investing in more vocal talent and securing respected ex-Immortals coach Ssong.

TSM was already home to the regions strongest domestic solo lane players. As such they were in the uniquely privileged position to be able to import Europe’s best performing bot lane, winning back to back EU LCS split finals. The hope is that Mithy will do what Yellowstar could not and finally alleviate the burdens of shot calling from the team’s franchise player, Bjergsen. Make no mistakes, this is a super team assembled for but one purpose; to redeem TSM’s international legacy.

Should they fail to escape groups this year one imagines fingers will be pointed at Bjergsen and/or Reginald.

Strengths: Raw Talent, Veteran Players, Legacy.

Concerns: Rookie Jungler, Obtrusive Ownership.

#2: Team Liquid

Top: Impact – Jungle: Xmithie – Mid: Pobelter – ADC: Doublelift – Support: Olleh – Coach: Cain

Team Liquid recruited aggressively over the off-season and acquired an abundance of veteran talent. Capitalising on the dissolution of the runner up Immortals roster and adding both Doublelift and Impact to the mix, this is a roster with five players who went to worlds last year, four players who were in the NA Summer finals and proven pedigree. The roster has a balance of role players, shot-callers and stars and looks like it should function on paper. A lot however, will depend on whether the bottom lane can be the focal point the roster requires.

Sadly due to tragedy Liquid lost its first choice in coach. The team has a history of shaky results in spite of cycling through some talented players. It would be a shame if the team fails to provide the infrastructure its roster deserves. There are no more excuses; anything short of Worlds is a definite failure for this roster.

Strengths: Veteran Players, Established Synergy, Balanced Roster.

Concerns: Bottom Lane Synergy, Potentially Binary Team.

#3: Counter Logic Gaming

Top: Darshan – Jungle: Reignover – Mid: Huhi – ADC: Stixxay – Support: Biofrost – Coach: Zikz

Counter Logic Gaming perhaps has less raw star power than the two rosters I’ve placed above them. However, the players on this roster have long been underestimated. Darshan and Huhi stepped up in a big way last year and proved they can contend with the best in their positions. These are all good players, but moreover they are coachable players. These are some of the most considered and receptive players in the league. This is the perfect roster for the CLG teamwork philosophy. With Zikz; regarded by many as NA’s best coach, this is a roster that could become more than the sum of it’s parts.

That said with the departure or Aphromoo, CLG lost its franchise player and in game leader. Biofrost, whilst a mechanically sound replacement for Aphromoo was released from TSM primarily because he is fairly uncommunicative. As such, one imagines the responsibilities of in game decision making will have to be shouldered by some combination of Darshan, Reignover and Huhi.

Strengths: Coaching, Ingenuity, Work Ethic.

Concerns: Leadership, Star Power.

#4: Cloud 9

Top: Licorice – Jungle: Svenskeren – Mid: Jensen – ADC: Sneaky – Support: Smoothie – Coach: Reapered

Cloud 9 has put together a strong roster. Preserving its core of a reliable bot lane in Sneaky and Smoothie and monstrous mid lane carry Jensen – the team can retain the style that scraped them a spot at worlds. However of the major legacy teams, this is the one I have the most concerns with. Given their status, they should have been able to manage safer acquisitions.

Svenskeren is a huge question mark right now. He was at his best, a phenomenal carry style jungler. At his worst however he stuck out like a sore thumb, fumbling through the early game whilst trying to heed Reginald’s advice of “not dying”. Also his Lee Sin was always a step above the rest of his champion pool and we haven’t seen Sven at his best since the five ban system was implemented. Even if he is a monster Lee, banning it out isn’t a costly as it once was.

Having lost Impact and having used their remaining import slot on Svenskeren the team had to choose from available talent to replace their stalwart top laner. Licorice seemed to fit the bill as probably the best challenger top laner. Moreover Cloud 9 have worked with Licorice before when he was on their academy team.

If this was a new organisation, I’d have nothing but praise for this roster but given this is Cloud 9 I feel like they’ve taken more risk than they should have. If retaining Contractz and importing a European top talent was a possibility, I think that would have been a safer bet. All that said, if Svenskeren can recapture his old form and utilise Jensen’s pressure mid – this team could be scary.

Strengths: Mid Lane, Pre-existing Core, Infrastructure/Coach.

Concern: Jungle Form, Rookie Top Lane.

#5: Clutch Gaming

Top: Solo – Jungle: Lira – Mid: Febiven – ADC: Apollo – Support: Hakuho – Coach: David Lim

This one might surprise people. However, I see Clutch Gaming as a very similar roster to Cloud 9. They acquired the best native top laner they could from the NA challenger scene along with a carry jungler with high peaks. They secured one of the best performing bottom lanes (in lane at least) from the prior split and at the centre of it all they have a star European mid laner.

Acquiring the best parts of Team EnVyUs was a really solid plan for a new organisation. Lira is a potential star, although perhaps not the most meta proof. Meanwhile the bottom lane really improved over time, yet remained rather underrated.

This let them focus on acquiring a star mid laner, Febiven. Whilst perhaps not the lane monster Jensen has proved to be, Febiven has had some stand out performances in his career and maintained very solid laning statistics in a significantly more stacked region in terms of skill for his position. Acquiring Febiven gives Clutch the potential to develop the kind of star mid laner that only Team Solo Mid and Cloud 9 can currently boast.

Whilst Clutch gaming has been made fun of a little for their statistics, or about ‘money balling’ – I do think the made very smart roster moves. They should be aiming for playoffs and are well positioned to build up in the future. My biggest concern for this roster would be EnVyUs’ unenviable mid to late game macro and these roster moves don’t necessarily fix that issue.

Strengths: Mid Lane, Potential to Grow.

Concerns: Rookie Top, Mid/Late Shotcalling.

#6: 100 Thieves

Top: Ssumday – Jungle: Meteos – Mid: Ryu – ADC: Cody Sun – Support: Aphromoo – Coach: Pr0lly

This is a hard roster to place. Ssumday is arguably the best top laner in the NA LCS. Pr0lly is a very well regarded coach and Aphromoo is a strong in game leader who is good at implementing a coach’s vision into the game.

However, individually Aphromoo has looked shaky for a while and always looks better on engage supports than shield supports. Ryu, whilst a solid mid is I think in the lower half of a now extremely stacked position. Meteos has not been consistently on form for a long time and faded out of the professional scene. Cody Sun looked fairly strong last split but never remarkable and was laning with who many regarded to be the best support.

A potential upside is, the historic Meteos worked very well around a strong top side when Balls was the best in the region. Moreover, I think being a mid-centric team with this roster would probably be a mistake, so stylistically this roster may suit Meteos more than Jensen era Cloud 9. I think if both Meteos and Aphro play even close to their ceilings this roster can do much better than 6th, especially if they utilise Ssumday well. However, if either or both of these players are unable to find the form that has earned them their reputations, then this will just be a fairly mediocre roster with moments of brilliance.

Strengths: Leadership, Coaching, Top Lane.

Concerns: Mid Lane, Potentially Declining Players.

#7: Echo Fox

Top: Huni – Jungle: Dardoch – Mid: Fenix – ADC: Altec – Support: Adrian – Coach: Inero

This is a roster that could make a mockery of this tier list. It’s insanely stacked on paper. However, I value consistency, and going into franchising it looks like Echo Fox are completely happy to play Russian roulette with their roster.

Dardoch, whilst undeniably talented has proven incredibly fractious in a team setting. He’s also a very defined, carry style jungler who wants to put the game on his own back. Huni looked best when he had Reignover; a more supportive style jungler and is also infamously inflexible. Furthermore, both Huni and Fenix are emotional players. This roster has huge potential for both player friction and disagreements in how the game should be played. I can see this roster at its best upsetting any other roster. However, at its worst, I can see this team imploding as the players begin to loathe one another.

Huni was a hell of an acquisition. He may have fallen short of being what SKT wanted, but he still was good enough to win a Season of LCK, MSI and reach the finals of Worlds. He’s also proven he can play his carry style against the best international competition.

The question-mark hanging above Echo Fox is why they replaced Froggen with Fenix. Sure, he’s a solid player and has a great Azir. However, Froggen just came off an incredibly strong individual split with basically nothing to work with.

If you’re set on gambling on Dardoch; why not keep the guy that is famously reliable and can accrue his own advantages in a very controlled manner whilst you pressure through top with Huni? Even if you ignore Fenix’s temperament being riskier combined with Dardoch, I think Froggen is the better player. I’m unconvinced by Echo Fox’s internal decision making and that is also a concern when you have a roster that’s going to need a very strong hand on the tiller.

Strengths: Explosive Players, Raw Skill.

Concerns: Player Mentality, Questionable Infrastrcture.

#8: FlyQuest

Top: Flame – Jungle: AnDa – Mid: Fly – ADC: WildTurtle – Support: Stunt – Coach: Robert Yip

Flyquest is a roster that looks like it was put together with left over parts. Flame was one of the best top laners of the last split; he has a lot of experience and is a proven entity. The rest of the roster however is a giant variable.

WildTurtle at his peak has been a fairly explosive team fighting AD Carry. However he’s prone to over aggression and getting caught. His laning has been sub-par for a long time and I find it unlikely that pairing him with Stunt will be enough to remedy that. Equally AnDa is also untested at this level of play. If North America does have a native talent pool for a position, it is the jungle, so hopefully AnDa joins the list of solid NA jungle rookies.

Fly has played at the LCK level and may prove to be better than I expect, but in the challenger scene finals he looked less impressive, about on par with Ryu (on Corki) who I think will be in the lower half of the mid laners this split. He’s known to be a solid roamer. So perhaps he can help out the map, maybe play a top focused style. Utilise Flame’s laning to crack the map, because it’s hard to see this bot lane making an early impact. However, on the whole I think this roster has either inconsistent or unproven players and that’s why they are 8th on this list.

Strengths: Top Side.

Concerns: Leadership, Team Identity, Inexperienced Jungler.

#9: Golden Guardians

Top: Lourlo – Jungle: Contractz – Mid: Hai – ADC: Deftly – Support: Matt – Coach: Locodoco

On paper this roster is perhaps the weakest mechanical roster. Lourlo, with the addition of many challenger top laners will be a middle of the pack top laner. Contractz might be a bright spot, he’s still fairly unseasoned but he looked capable enough on Cloud 9.

Hai whilst ever praised for his leadership ability, has been in a steady individual decline ever since his wrist injury and has a lot to prove against some incredibly mechanically gifted opponents.

Deftly is untested at this level of play and Matt has had confidence issues, but looked solid at times. When given Doublelift I think he actually looked pretty strong as a laner, but that is a pretty huge advantage. All that said, unlike a few other rosters, there is a logic to this roster.

First of all, they are all North American natives, so as far as expansion goes, this team can pick and chose to swap out whatever parts prove least effective. Secondly, both Hai and Locodoco have proven very good at getting the best out of rookie players. If they can work in tandem this roster may be able to become more than the sum of its parts. Maybe Deftly develops into the next big NA talent for instance, this is a great team to be on if you’re a rookie looking to develop.

However, realistically just reaching play offs will be a big accomplishment given the calibre of some of the other rosters.

Strengths: Leadership, Potential to Grow.

Concerns: Talent Level, Rookie Roster.

#10: Optic Gaming

Top: Zig – Jungle: Akaadian– Mid: PowerOfEvil – ADC: Arrow – Support: Lemonnation– Coach: Zaboutine

Aptly named because whoever put this roster together probably needs glasses. Whilst this team may have some more individually talented players than say Golden Guardians, I cannot figure out any kind of internal logic as to why you would assemble this cast of players.

You have a potential star in Arrow, who has in the past shown to be an incredible AD Carry. This said, his laning phase has looked particularly vulnerable and pairing him with Lemonnation is going to do very little to help with that.

Akaadian had a strong opening with Echo Fox but has looked less and less impressive with time. Zig may have some promise, he’s probably third pick after Licorice and Solo for native challenger scene top laners. Then there’s PowerOfEvil, a talented European mid lane with a slightly unconventional play-style. He’s looked incredible at times on good rosters, but failed to make an impact on weaker rosters like Origin. Seeing as this roster can be described as weaker, I don’t think he will be enough to redeem this team.

Strengths: Carry Positions.

Concerns: Roster Cohesion, Rookie Topside.