The North American Summer Split is underway and it sure shaping up to be a competitive one. Starting with the expected contenders for the crown Team SoloMid, Cloud9, and Phoenix1 finished a combined 1-5 with the worst being an embarrassing 0-2 from Phoenix1. Not to be outdone in the surprise factor, two of the expected bottom tier teams in EchoFox and Immortals showed up to play as the season began. With both teams coming out with a pair of series victories and our top teams falling short, the power rankings have been shaken up as the Summer Split moves towards week two!

#1: (+3) Counter Logic Gaming – CLG looked like a team with clear strengths as the season opened, ending week one 2-0. The early game seemed to revolve around roam plays from Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black, leading to early leads from the mid and top lane. Follow this up with an emphasis on early dragon control, and the occasional rift, and CLG’s macro play pushed them into the mid game. Followed up by excellent tank play, especially in late game team fights, Darshan “Darshan” Upadhyaha provided the front line needed for carry performances by both Choi “HuHi” Jae-hyun and Trevor “Stixxay” Hayes throughout the week. The only major question marks shown week one was an inability to close quickly as the game moved past thirty-five minutes and a pretty poor performance from Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett, especially on Day One. I’ll mark it off to a bit of early nerves and place CLG at the top of this list.

#2: (-1) Team SoloMid – While a disappointing loss towards Immortals on Sunday may cause some to call this ranking in question I’m choosing to give the reigning champs a bit of a pass. A dominating game one vs C9 showed how strong TSM can be with Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng on a more carry orientated marksmen, but a question arises for the champs on where the damage comes from if utility marksmen remain prominent in the meta. A generally weak performance by MVP runner up Kevin “Hauntzer” Yarnell would be the cause of this, as his week one performance showed disrespect towards both his counterpart and the enemy jungler. With multiple ganks and the occasional solo kill from both Ray and Flame this was not the performance TSM wanted to see in what looks to be a more damage focused top lane. If Hauntzer can right the ship this week vs both CLG and DIG, there should be little cause for concern, if not we may see some team compositions with Yarnell resigned to tank duty once again.

#3: (+6) Immortals – Oh man what a pleasant surprise to see. Not only did Immortals come out of the gates with effective early game macro, they followed it up with fantastic individual performances as well. Jake “Xmithie” Puchero provided the team with a sense of direction, by setting up hard carry performances the likes we haven’t seen in a while from Eugene “Pobelter” Park and Lee “Flame” Ho-Jong. With consistent pressure extending well past the laning phase, Immortals rotated well taking a plethora of towers and neutral objectives. Follow that up with the ability to recover from the occasional mishap and Immortals looked bar none the most well-prepared team coming into Week One of Summer. If this team remains consistent in their play throughout the next few weeks, they could be a stronger contender looking towards the playoffs.

#4: (-1) Cloud 9 – Now for the other end of the spectrum… When I talked about Week One, there was some criticism related to how I could rank C9 at 3rd after a dominating start to the spring and another NA LCS Finals appearance from the boys in blue. But their clear weakness showed its head throughout the entirety of their first two sets, an inability to make intelligent proactive plays, especially in the early game. In their set vs CLG, they seemed to always be reacting to the more aggressive CLG team while vs Team SoloMid they seemed out matched as they forced repeatedly in the bot lane only to fail on multiple occasions. Overall it wasn’t pretty from C9 which is what you’d expect from a team that now sits at 0-2, but there is an upside. The toughest part of the first Round Robin is now past Cloud 9 resulting in more expected leads based on lane strength, and even when behind the ability to counter-punch better than anyone else in North America.

#5: (+1) Dignitas – Though I’m hesitant to call any of the wins that Dignitas pulled together extremely impressive following their first week ending 2-0, what truly was a sight to behold was Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho’s performances on a plethora of champions this weekend. His Lucian hard carried Dignitas in Game One vs Fly Quest providing solo lane kill pressure early and fantastic team fighting late, and then when you thought it couldn’t get any better he followed it up with a split pushing clinic on Fiora. Whether it was masterfully navigating a dragon fight to gain most of his lead or understanding the ins and outs of side lane pressure, Ssumday put this team on his back in Week One and I would expect will do so throughout this split.

#6: (-4) Phoenix1 – Going into the start of the split, I had a large amount of optimism when it came to P1. Coming off an MVP split from Noh “Arrow” Dong-hyeon, and a team surrounded with capable veterans in almost every role Phoenix1 looked to come out the gate strong against generally weaker competition. Unfortunately, they disappointed in most every way with questionable draft phases, over-stepping in team fights and generally inadequate play out of solo laners Ryu “Ryu” Sang-wook and Derek “Zig” Shao. This team likely is still a playoff team, but with other teams such as CLG and Immortals improving over the break, P1 could find themselves firmly in the middle of the pack by split end.

#7 (+3) Echo Fox – If watching Team Dignitas play was the Ssumday show, then Echo Fox’s week one performance was all about the man in the middle, Henrik “Froggen” Hansen. Benefited by early gank pressure from Matthew “Akaadian” Higgenbottom, Echo Fox was able to stay even, and transition that into mid-game leads primarily through the mid lane. This eventually snowballed into the more supportive side lanes leading into slow and methodical wins characterized by a plethora of mistakes. Though Echo Fox came out of the week 2-0, they looked particularly underwhelming verseus sub-par competition leaving much more to be desired.

#8: (-) Team EnVy – A surprise win against Phoenix1 salvaged a week that looked to be a disaster following a match littered with missed opportunities against Dignitas. EnVy showed a few things this weekend that look promising for the team though. An ability to come back from early game deficits, the ability to make proactive plays past the fifteen-minute mark, and consistently strong performances from new mid laner Choi “Pirean” Jun-Sik all instill some confidence. If this trend continues, EnVy could potentially sneak into the playoff race later on in the split, that being said there is still a long way to go, and this is only the first step towards improvement.

#9 (-2) FlyQuest – The FlyQuest of Summer 2017 is starting to look like the team most analysts expected to see going into the Spring. A team with a talent deficit scrambling to make risky plays to compensate for their general player weaknesses. FlyQuest showed their patented aggressive shot-calling with high risk, high reward Rift Herald and Baron calls and while they occasionally worked out in their favor overall the team just lacks the strength to compete against the other more talented rosters. If this team hopes to make a run toward Worlds like Galen “Moon” Holgate claims, it may be beneficial to look towards finding a competent sub for the Top Lane.

#10 (-2) Team Liquid – There’s not much to say about Team Liquid but yikes… Their macro game and apparent team environment appears to be near the point of no return. Pressure wise and movement wise their macro decisions just lack the common sense of a team you’d expect at the pro-level. Hopefully the introduction of Coach Jang “Cain” Nu-ri can provide the team a leadership figure to help right the ship but honestly until I see major shot-calling improvements from Team Liquid there is little hope for this team to escape last place.

All opinions and insight are provided by Tyler “TheSaintt” Ladzinski, sole proprietor of TheLolEsportsBlog

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