Longzhu Gaming’s western fanbase spent 2016 clamoring for the team to start acclaimed top laner Lee “Flame” Hojong over Koo “Expession” Bontaek. Expession’s steady but unspectacular performances didn’t compensate for the mythos of Flame, one of the most lauded top laners to ever play the game.

With Flame heading to North American LCS team Immortals and Longzhu emphasizing what looks like a more stable core starting roster, the unrest should have settled. Yet as Longzhu continue to put up erratic performances, a new quiet rumbling has started around the mid lane role.

Following the departures of Shin “Coco” Jinyeong and Kim “Frozen” Taeil, Longzhu signed ex-KT Rolster Song “Fly” Yongjun and ex-CJ Entus Gwak “Bdd” Boseong. So far, Fly has started for every game Longzhu have played, but he has failed in a key tenet of mid laners in the 2017 season: holding a lead and pushing the lane to facilitate jungle invades.

Fly averages the second lowest Gold lead at 10 minutes and lowest CS differential at 10 minutes of any mid laner in League Champions Korea. Meanwhile, alleged mid lane prodigy Bdd sits on the bench as a promising alternative who might hold the lane better.

Though nowhere near as strong as the calls for Flame to start last year, the appeals of Bdd supporters have increased in volume. The problem is that one player rotation often won’t fix a more systemic flaw in team cohesion. To get a better grasp of this concept, it’s helpful to compare Longzhu Gaming to a team that arguably has their largest raw talent asset in the mid lane: the EU LCS’ Fnatic.

Both Longzhu and Fnatic have had teetering, but conservatively promising, starts. Longzhu’s signing of bottom lane duo Kim “PraY” Jongin and Kang “GorillA” Beomhyeon makes single game losses to teams like Jin Air Greenwings appear inexcusable. Fnatic also had a three-game series against Giants Gaming that felt less clean than fans hopeful for a renaissance would have expected.

Otherwise, these teams have had somewhat front-loaded schedules with Longzhu facing Samsung Galaxy and KT Rolster and Fnatic duking it out with G2 Esports, the top EU LCS team of 2016. This isn’t the only commonality. The construction of the rosters within a regional context also bears similarities. PraY and GorillA, though with a great deal more clout, are used to being strong performers supporting a star top laner, similar to Martin “Rekkles” Larsson’s role in Fnatic in 2015 when the roster was at its peak. Yet both teams now feature less explosive veteran top laners in Expession and Paul “sOAZ” Boyer.

The greatest divergence comes in how the mid lane role operates. Rasmus “Caps” Winther has crushed his slightly more experienced lane opponents Luka “PerkZ” Perković and Na “NighT” Gunwoo, averaging the highest gold lead at 10 minutes in EU LCS at 368 gold over his opponents. This puts him in stark contrast to Longzhu’s Fly, who has almost always played a more supportive role on his Korean teams.

Even this season, Fly seems happiest on Taliyah, a champion he has played in two of Longzhu’s three wins. With Taliyah, Fly can leave the mid lane entirely and exert pressure on his side lanes. Indeed, despite Fly’s poor ability to gain a gold lead of his own, his side lane carries, PraY and Expession, are within the top four of their roles in LCK for gold leads at 10 minutes.





Not all of this is directly attributable to Fly, as PraY and GorillA are known for their self-sufficiency in lane, and Expession has played several picks designed to perform well in laning phase, including Kennen and Singed. Outside his Taliyah games, Fly has not roamed as much as he did on his former team, KT Rolster. He has drawn criticism in particular for not accumulating large leads on champions chosen almost explicitly to do well in the laning phase, like Jayce or Corki.

In Fnatic’s six games, Caps has performed well in the 1v1 regardless of whether his matchup is designed to be strong in the early game (he has played Ryze into Taliyah well twice, for example). Caps is almost always pushed forward in lane, reflected by the fact that he has the highest wards placed per minute of any EU LCS mid laner (mid laners who often get push advantage will have more opportunities to place side lane control wards or trinkets at jungle entrances).

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